Planning on retaining walls for your yard or landscape might be something you want to do so you can terrace it as you like. You might also find yourself having to do it in order to meet building codes, other regulations, or just to keep your property safe. In either case, estimating your retaining walls cost is what lets you figure out how much your budget for this project is going to be.
Across the country, the average cost of most retaining walls lands at around $5,500. Yours could be higher or lower though, given that is just the average. An experienced retaining wall contractor will be able to effectively estimate this cost for you. The range is more valuable information, and most property owners wind up spending from $2,900 up to $7,900, which might be a better ballpark. A lot of the variability in the price of retaining walls is because of the materials used. Those can run from as low as $3 per square foot up to $40. Wall blocks can hover between $10 to $15 per square foot, and wood can run from $15 up to $25. Poured, precase concrete is more expensive than most options, running from $20 up to $25 per square foot. Of course, the material isn’t the only cost, as labor costs and the actual size of the wall are other huge determinants.
Retaining walls can have many different purposes, which is why you should have an experienced retaining wall contractor in San Diego on your side. You might want one to hold a foundation solidly in place, or you just want to protect a portion of your property from any sliding soil. You can also use them to add more surface area to your property boundaries or even to merely preserve any ground that is there right now. Given how retaining walls are typically among the more visible elements of the exterior landscape of their home, homeowners that build them usually want them to look as gorgeous as they are functional. Fortunately, a number of materials can be used in the construction of your retaining wall, so you should be able to find both a material and a price tag that catches your eye.
Even though labor is one of the primary factors in estimating the cost of a retaining wall, labor costs themselves have numerous variables going into them. If your wall is going to be higher than usual, that can get more expensive. The ease of access workers have to a project site might also influence the labor quote. If any fence or gate has to be removed or dismantled in order to get materials and labor to the worksite, this is additional time and money. Additional charges might apply for labor should dirt need to be removed to somewhere other than its original property. Having said all this, labor costs typically run between $50 to $60 an hour, although there are regional variations.
Estimating your retaining walls cost lets you find out the financial feasibility of your project so you can make sure you have the funds available for this project. If you’re wanting to build a wall, then you might have to be willing to sacrifice on particular elements in order to bring down costs to what you can affordably manage, otherwise, your wall might have to wait. Likewise, if the wall is a necessity, you can use the estimated information and variables to figure out how to get the wall you need at a price that doesn’t break you.
