Retaining Wall Cost Estimate

This civil engineering article provides some useful guidelines to make estimate of retaining wall that is built with stone masonry.

Retaining Wall Estimate

Retaining walls stand for relatively firm walls to mainly provide support for the soil laterally in order to maintain it at various levels on the two sides. The purpose of the retaining walls is to hold back the soil to a slope that it would not usually keep to (generally a steep, near-vertical or vertical slope).

The retaining wall is erected to withstand the lateral pressure of the soil, when a change is occurred in ground elevation that surpasses the angle of repose of the soil.

To construct a retaining wall, the average cost is approximately around $50 per sq along with the materials and labor costs.

Retaining wall estimate is done in the following ways

1. Cubicle content (cubic meter) of concrete L x H x thickness of wall
2. Shuttering on both side in Sq. M
3. Quantity of reinforcement

4. Consider the excavation section and back filling also
5. Work out the above quantities to find out the total cost by multiplying the unit rates with quantity

Estimation For Retaining Wall

1) Calculate RCC work with shuttering and centering. Do not include reinforcement with bending of bars. Also work out the total quantity of shuttering work and volume of concreting.

Also Read: How to calculate volume of concrete retaining wall

2) Measurement of steel reinforcement - It is done by creating a bar bending schedule. It provides the total quantity of steel necessary for building up the retaining wall. At first, the reinforcement of stem is estimated based on the distribution of main bars and distribution bars, then the quantity is worked out for active earth pressure and passive earth pressure.

Secondly, the reinforcement for toe and heal is estimated for main and distribution bars together with the length and width of retaining wall to bear the tension and compression.

3) Finally, the rate analysis is done with the help of rates provided for each quantity.

To get more clear ideas, go through the following exclusive construction video tutorial.

Video Source: Engineer Boy