Retaining wall repair rec

[MAEngr]

I am evaluating an exterior retaining wall that a contractor built to prescriptive codes. They came back after inspection and added two feet of additional retaining height which means insufficient rebar in the wall and inadequate footing sizes. The wall is starting to bow in the middle. The owner would like to not demo and rebuild the wall. My thoughts on repair would be to add a haunched wall butted against the existing wall with dowels and to add additional concrete/rebar to the footing. Is this the approach you all recommend? They would also be open to a buttress wall in the middle on the exposed side since that side is downhill and not visible. I don’t like this option as much.

 

[XR250]

Can you post a picture of the wall?

 

[JAE]

Sometimes walls are stabilized using lateral helical anchors.

 

[MAEngr]

Thanks both for the responses. This is currently preliminary. I will be going on site to evaluate the current conditions later in the week. A bit more clarification based on information provided to me which also changes how I want to proceed. It is an exterior prescriptive CMU retaining wall supporting a backyard patio deck above. The contractor added 2’ on top of the wall post inspection, so the existing block size is too small (8” instead of 12” per the table) and doesn’t match the specification for the corrected wall height, and the vertical rebars are also undersized now.

Based on the current conditions it seems like the helical anchors are the best bet. I was also looking into carbon fiber support, but I dont believe that will work here. Is this document a good source for calc’ing my anchor diameters and lengths?

https://helicalanchorsinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/HAI-Engineering-Manual-min.pdf#page14

Would adding a concrete wall/haunch to the exterior face of the cmu wall be out of the picture as another alternative solution?

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Honestly, it would help to know a little more. Total length of wall, height of wall. And, pictures.

Another question is whether you believe the safety factors for sliding and overturning are sufficient.... It which case it's just an issue of reinforcement of the wall.

Concrete or masonry? If it's masonry, there could be a possibility of reinforcing through ungrouted cells.