Concrete Retaining Walls in Edgewater, FL

Concrete retaining wall in Edgewater: where the runoff goes when the grade changes

Height isn't what Edgewater cares about most. Rain is. Under the city's Right of Way, Stormwater and Fill application, a lot under 10,890 sq ft (a quarter acre) has to hold the first 1/2 inch of runoff, and a bigger lot the first inch. That water goes in sodded retention areas with 6:1 or flatter side slopes, drawn on a site plan, and none of them can run deeper than 6 inches.

Take a 10,000 sq ft lot. The city's own math gives 415 cubic feet of storage, or 830 sq ft of retention area at 6 inches deep. A wall that terraces a back yard or levels a side slope shifts the low spot, so we sketch the wall and the retention area on the same page before anyone orders concrete. Building a retaining wall to stop a washout? Start with one question: where does the water go once the wall is up?

Fill behind the wall, drainage easements and the Patio/Slab permit

The dirt you pile behind a wall counts as fill, and the city watches fill closely. Its Patio/Slab Permit wants the slab size and job cost, plus a survey that shows the slab, the drainage and the setbacks. One line is printed in capital letters: do not encroach into drainage easements with new fill. The same page says trees in the fill area may need a removal permit.

A tree counts from 6 inches across at chest height. A historic tree at 36 inches needs City Council approval, laurel oak excepted. Which form your wall goes under, the patio and slab permit or the stormwater and fill application, is the Building Division's call. Ask before the plans get drawn. The code skips the stormwater permit when a parcel's total impervious area stays under 1,000 sq ft, but only when no fill or digging changes the runoff, and a wall holding new soil may not qualify.

Skip the permit and you'll pay for it. Work started without one costs 200 percent of the permit fee. The base is $75 plus 0.0065 of the valuation, on top of a $100 application fee for one and two family homes. Our Volusia permits guide walks through the order of steps.

Zone A, the Intracoastal and cup-for-cup fill

We spot-checked 61 points on FEMA's flood map across the city. 27.9 percent landed in Zone A with no base flood elevation published, and 1.6 percent in Zone AE at 5 ft. Another 67.2 percent were Zone X. Edgewater says land along the Indian River Lagoon floods more easily in heavy rain, high tide and tropical storms. Its Build Responsibly page adds that any floodplain work, fill dirt included, needs a permit.

The Land Development Code goes further. Fill below base flood elevation in the flood zone needs "cup for cup" compensatory storage, so raising your yard can't cost the neighborhood flood room. On the east edge, the Intracoastal Waterway is the Mosquito Lagoon aquatic preserve, an Outstanding Florida Water. The code asks for a 50 ft upland setback from the mean high water line and 25 ft from wetland vegetation. Whether that table reaches your wall is a question for Development Services.

The under-$7,500 permit shortcut is void for a lot partly or entirely in a flood hazard area. Our flood-zone guide shows how that plays out near the water.

Florida Shores grade, Myakka sand and muck under the footing

That same city form tells Florida Shores properties to grade toward the city right-of-way where possible. Own there and want a wall? The water behind it needs a way out to the street side, and the drawing should show it. The median home here was built in 1988, so plenty of back yards were graded decades ago, and your neighbors' drainage still follows that grade.

Then look underneath. We checked the same 61 points against the state soil map. Myakka fine sand turned up at 18.0 percent, Smyrna fine sand at 9.8 percent and Immokalee sand at 8.2 percent, all poorly drained. Daytona sand, moderately well drained, was 11.5 percent. Muck soils (Tequesta, Samsula, Gator) showed at 9.8 percent of points. Hit muck when we open the footing trench and it comes out, replaced with compacted fill before any steel goes in.

Every wall we build gets gravel, filter fabric and a perforated drain pipe behind it, and we show you where that pipe empties before we dig. Rain in the wet months is heavy. A wall with no drain path takes all that water as pressure instead of letting it leave. Poured walls carry steel inside, and block walls get steel and grout in the hollow cells. The footing sits on compacted base, never on loose fill or roots.

What this wall costs, and what to have ready

Our Volusia range for a concrete retaining wall in Edgewater is $25 to $45 per sq ft of wall face, poured or block, up to about 4 feet. Picture a 100 ft wall, 3 ft high. That's 300 sq ft of face, or $7,500 to $13,500. Taller walls get an engineered design, and we price them to it. Want a seat wall by a patio too? Ask about the patio work in Edgewater at the same visit.

Before we write the free estimate, pull together your survey with the drainage easements marked, your lot size for the retention math, a photo of the slope, and the spots where trees stand. Text them to (386) 220-8770 or use the estimate form. Our concrete contractors in Edgewater page lists everything else we pour here. If the wall will border a new walk or a driveway apron, we pour the pieces in a sensible order, so nobody has to break into fresh concrete to fix a drain line.