# Forum Home Renovation Brickwork  Blocklaying for Retaining wall

## scoobysteve

Hi All, 
I'm not sure if i've posted in the right location however i thought since this forum is about brickwork etc, i thought it might be ok. 
I'm wanting to have a block retaining wall done at the front of my house. The wall is to be about 13m long and 1m high. 
I've been quoted around $500 - $550 sqm. This includes footings, materials (blocks and reo bars etc), and equipment hire i guess.  
Does this sound right?  
any suggestions would be great.

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## Art Martin

I've done a few myself a while ago, so I can only comment on materials. Blocks at about $30sqmetre is $490 plus some sand and cement, maybe $100.  Footings(400x400 at a guess)-13 metres, about 2.1 cubes at about $200 a cube ~$500 with a bit of waste. Plus they have to be dug. ( I have no idea of the cost of that, as I did it with mine with an old fashioned shovel and pick. Free, but an absolute sh*t to do  Steel (I have heard it went up recently), but I'd allow (?) $20 a metre for trench mesh or cage, plus starter bars every ?50cm?? (maybe 30 lineal metres). So about $300 overall for steel. Depends on what you are retaining, and how well engineered it is going to be  Core Fill would be a few more cubes, say another $500 if it's a retaining wall  So thats about 1900 for materials + plus it costs to dig the footings. The rest being labour, plus, as its a retaining wall, they'd need insurances etc  Personally, I think a few guys would be able to whip the wall up in a day or two, plus a few hours either side for laying concrete and core filling.  I'd imagine 5-6k is on the high side, but not unreasonable. I think I've read on here that the going rate for blocklaying is about $8 a block, so 13sqm is about 800 bucks.Coucil approval is also surprising expensive if needed. It would have cost me $1000 to lodge an application for a 1.2 metre wall, but not needed if kept at less than a metre. Depends on your coucil, but this can be an added cost.  I think it depends on a lot of variables, and you might need to be more specific to get a more accurate indication.

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## scoobysteve

Hi, 
thanks for your input. 
I originally think circa $4K i would be happy to pay but when the quote come back in at $5-6K (just going off a 1m high x 13m long wall measurement - an actual visit to the site hasnt been done yet) with the possiblity of it being higher, it sort of turned me off.  
One of my neighbour's built his wall, about 600mm high and about the same length and he said it cost him around $1500 (although another neighbour who lived near us at the time had a mini excavotor and about 1/2 pallet of blocks which he gave away). My neighbour did the labour himself.  
So if anyone else has anymore thoughts, it would be great.

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## PaulHo

Hi Scooby 
I recently came across a website called www.diyquotes.com.au when I was looking to concrete my driveway. The estimate it gave me turned out to be fairly close to what I ended up paying. Only cost $2.95. It does quotes for all types of fencing, as well as pools and other stuff. 
Worth a try.   :Yikes2:

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## scoobysteve

Thanks for that Paul.. i'll give that a go.

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## D&N

we used that site for our 10 m front rendered front fence, gates etc & also used it for a rough price on the new driveway, it was pretty close to the actual quotes but that was a few months ago.. 
good luck

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