# Will hand tamping be enough for a retaining wall?



## Daniel Holzman (Mar 10, 2009)

You cannot generate as much pressure using a hand tamper as a machine tamper. However, if you tamp in small lifts (say 3 inches rather than the 6 inches generally used with a machine tamper), you can get enough pressure to get by. As for your note "suggest using a plate compactor to compact the gravel and soil behind the wall" you should not be compacting soil behind the wall, only the clean gravel as recommended by the manufacturer. Don't try to save money by placing soil behind the wall, you need free draining granular material only.


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## concretemasonry (Oct 10, 2006)

Hand impact/tamping is not a substitute for a vibratory plate compactor when it comes to the compaction of the gravel base the wall sits on. When it comes to the backfill, it all depends on the soil type and height retained.

How high is the wall? Usually, geo-grid is not necessary as long as you are building a gravity wall (usually defined as 4' or 5' high, depending on the local code. When it get beyond 5' total height, you will need some professional help instead of a work out because then, the geo-grid length and spacing gets important. With good engineering, the wall can be over 40' high using the standard SRW units.

Dick


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## kmc (Apr 26, 2011)

Thanks for the replies. I have very sandy soil. Dries out super damn fast:whistling2:. So I know that my soil conditions are probably the best possible for retaining wall construction. I think I will do the bottom row of blocks over a weekend and cover that row with gravel along with the drain pipe. Then the next weekend, I can probably install the rest of the blocks, gravel, soil all in the same day and rent a compactor. I was just trying to save a few bucks but I guess that would not be too bright.


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