[Malrex]

I was taught to have gravel behind a stone wall and some drainage pipe. I've only done about 3 months of hardscaping in my past (mainly patios) and don't usually apply it to my business so I was just curious about something I saw today.

At a job site, I was installing flex hose to gutters and running them away from the house. On one gutter I had to go through a recently completed dry stacked rock wall (no mortar or anything, just stacked) built by a different landscape company. The wall is only about a foot and a half to 2 feet tall and just had dirt packed behind it. Some of the dirt had actually washed over or through the wall into some riverstone that is laid against the house.

If a rock wall is below a certain height (I'm guessing 3 feet) can you get away from not adding gravel behind it and drain pipe? Or should all walls get the treatment? I was surprised not to see any gravel at least, but I'm not all that experienced in that sort of thing.

[EpicInterlock]

Some guys on here would over engineer the walls, no matter how high they are.

In my opinion, I would put a landscape fabric (black fiberglass material that allows for flow of air and water, but not dirt) behind any wall otherwise you'll get the problem you're encountering with this dry stack wall.

I think you're on the right track with your thinking about putting gravel and some kind of weeping tile (flex hose) behind the wall, wrapped with the landscape fabric. Just because someone did it differently doesn't mean it's right.

Keep up the good work.

[Lanelle]

You can also throw the small broken pieces of fieldstone on the backside of the wall where you would put gravel to create that same drainage area. It keeps the rubble on the site instead of hauling it to the dump and creates a good place for the water to drain. Fabric is still necessary to keep the soil from migrating forward into the drainage area.

[TrickyDick]

I no wall expert but it seems to me that just soil behind a dry stacked wall is a bad idea. Soil will freeze and move a lot and the wall will too. I think you can get away with it on solid wall as long as there is somewhere for water to drain.

[HardScaper26]

I might put gravel behind a wall of that size. Two feet isn't very much and the water can leech through the fieldstone joints. I do not believe drainpipe is neccesary for that wall, however

[johnkeegan]

We put 12" of "crusher run" which is essentially gravel in purpose, behind stone walls. Otherwise freeze/thaw will push it out.
Fabric is another issue, which I believe has been discussed here before. Pluses/minuses. Even the block manufacturers flip flop on it. We only use it on real fine, silty soils.
And drain pipe behind such a low, dry-laid is probably pointless unless there are unusual water issues.

[GLAN]

We put the trash pieces behind the wall.....I am not taking the scraps home.

And we have been fine with just soil.

My area......we have outstanding drainage to begin with.....and if there was alot of water behind the wall.......dry stack allows the water to pass through.

We have had some wall installs where the slope was towards the house and we then had to do what ever necessary to get the water else where.