Masonry / Block Wall in Bellevue, WA
How the job started, what our in-house crew built, and how it turned out.
01Site & challenge
A hillside side yard in Bellevue had become an unusable strip of mud: the cut slope above it was raw, the grade sloped toward the house, and there was nowhere for water to go. The owners needed roughly 200 linear feet of retaining wall along the fence line to hold the bank, square up the yard, and drain properly — and they wanted it done fast, before the wet season turned the slope into a bigger problem.
02What we built
We protected the cut slope with membrane and erosion control first, then trenched to bearing along the full 200 feet and set long, straight wooden forms with continuous rebar for a concrete footing. Once the footing cured, our crew laid reinforced CMU block course by course, keeping steel continuous through the cells and grouting the wall solid to code, with a mini excavator handling block and backfill in the tight corridor. Drainage rock and pipe went in behind the wall before we regraded the side yard to a finished grade that sheds water away from the foundation. The wall was engineered and permitted through our in-house engineering and permitting team and built under our concrete and masonry service.
03Outcome
Eight working days from the first trench to final grade, the once-muddy side yard is a flat, dry, usable strip held by a reinforced block wall permitted through the City of Bellevue and King County. Wet, sloped Bellevue lots put real pressure on a side-yard wall; this one is built to hold.
