# Forum Home Renovation Retaining Walls  To sock or not to sock?

## Lagerfan

Hi all, 
I've been reading a lot of debate on the forum about the merits of socked versus unsocked agi drains for use behind retaining walls. The socks or fabric clog eventually anyway seems to be a common point. 
So my question was... is a valid alternative to put a silt pit at one end of the wall and run 90mm slotted pipe the length of the wall, with correct fall of course, through your aggregate? The pit(s) can then be connected to the storm water. 
To me the beauty of this system is you can clean out the pits periodically and the 90mm pipe can easily be cleaned out with rods/eel if ever needed in future. 
Is this the raving of a madman? I guess it is going to add some $$$ to the project but I'm thinking of those simple pits made out of 300mm pipe buried vertically.

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## cherub65

Use agg with sock, cover drainage materiel with geo fabric this will stop silt getting to pipe.
As you say bring one end of agg pipe to above surface level, this can be flushed periodically.

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## Lagerfan

Thanks, I found a picture that describes what you are saying. This looks pretty good for ensuring the pipe doesn't silt up. 
(Picture courtesy of these guys: http://www.centenarylandscaping.com....leeperwall.pdf)

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