ENGINEERED 
RETAINING
WALLS®

A reinforced earth (MSE) or geogrid retaining wall gets its strength from a reinforced soil or stone mass behind the face — not from the face blocks themselves. Layers of geogrid (a high-strength polymer grid) are embedded horizontally into clean crushed-stone backfill at regular vertical intervals, tying it into a unified mass that resists sliding, overturning, and hydrostatic pressure. The wall face — segmental block, big-block, or precast panels — acts as an erosion barrier and finish. This is what separates a structurally engineered wall from a stacked-block landscape wall.

Geogrid creates friction between the grid and the compacted stone around it. When the slope tries to push the wall outward, the geogrid layers — which extend 4 to 12+ feet back into the slope depending on wall height — transfer that load backward into the stable reinforced mass rather than outward into the wall face. The result is a composite structure that behaves more like a reinforced embankment than a gravity wall, handling loads far beyond what any purely gravity-based block system can achieve.

MSE/geogrid walls are the best choice when the wall is tall (over 4–6 feet), when it must support a heavy surcharge like a driveway, building, or loaded slope, when the soil is unstable or clay-heavy, or when the site has limited space for a thicker gravity wall. For most residential applications in Western NC, North Georgia, and East Tennessee — where slopes are steep and rainfall is heavy — a reinforced geogrid system is the standard of care for anything but low decorative walls.

Properly engineered MSE walls can be built to very significant heights. Our tallest residential wall stands 68.5 feet. There is no theoretical ceiling on height — the engineering simply scales up the geogrid lengths, reinforcement densities, and drainage systems to match the load. Practical limits are the available space behind the wall for geogrid embedment, site access for excavation, and geotechnical feasibility for the specific soil and slope conditions on the site.

Yes — significantly stronger for tall or high-pressure applications. A standard stacked block wall relies purely on its own weight to resist earth pressure, which limits how tall it can safely be built without reinforcement. A geogrid wall uses a reinforced soil mass that distributes load across a much larger volume of material, giving it far greater resistance to sliding, overturning, and hydrostatic pressure. On sites with steep slopes, heavy rain, or clay soils, an unreinforced block wall is a failure waiting to happen.

Clean, angular, free-draining crushed stone is the approved structural fill for geogrid walls — typically #57 stone or a specified open-graded aggregate that allows water to move freely through the reinforced zone. Native clay soil, topsoil, sandy loam, or any organic material behind geogrid retains water, reduces geogrid friction, and causes the wall to fail under load. Wrong backfill behind geogrid is one of the most common construction defects we find when evaluating failed retaining walls.

Drainage is absolutely critical — even in an MSE wall where the reinforced stone backfill is itself free-draining. Every MSE wall must have a perforated collection pipe at the base of the drainage zone and positive outlets to daylight at regular intervals along the wall length, typically every 20 feet. If outlets become blocked or are never installed, water saturates the backfill, dramatically increases unit weight, and generates hydrostatic pressure that overwhelms even properly reinforced systems.

MSE wall failures are almost always construction defects: wrong backfill material (native clay instead of clean stone), inadequate compaction in the reinforced zone, geogrid installed at the wrong length or spacing for the wall height, drainage outlets missing or blocked, or no engineering on a wall that required it. Geogrid walls that are properly designed and built with correct materials and drainage essentially do not fail. Every failure we've evaluated had at least two of these defects simultaneously.

Signs include early bulging or stair-step cracking within 2–5 years of construction, caps sinking or separating, visible wet spots weeping from behind the wall face, movement after heavy rain events, and drainage outlets that are missing or never active. These indicate backfill, compaction, or drainage were not installed per specification. A licensed engineer can confirm the defects by excavating and inspecting the backfill zone behind the failed section.

Yes — MSE walls are among the best structural options for saving houses on failing slopes and stabilizing active landslide areas. Because the geogrid reinforcement works back into the slope mass, it counteracts the failure plane causing slope movement — effectively turning unstable slope material into part of the engineered structure. We've used MSE systems to stop active house foundation movement and rebuild slopes that had been failing for years.

MSE walls work well on lake and no-road-access properties, though they require more logistical planning than gravity walls because the clean-stone backfill volume is substantial. We deliver materials by barge and crane when road access is limited. The MSE system's drainage performance is particularly important on lake lots where groundwater levels vary with lake elevation throughout the year.

When engineered and built to specification with proper drainage, compaction, and correct backfill, MSE walls are designed for a 75–100+ year service life — among the most durable retaining wall systems available. The geogrid itself has a design life measured in decades under normal soil conditions. Long-term performance depends almost entirely on whether the original construction was done correctly, since properly built MSE systems essentially never fail from structural causes.