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STRUCTURAL · HILLSIDE · PERMITTED

Retaining walls that hold a real hill.

A retaining wall in San Francisco isn’t landscaping — it’s the thing standing between your lot and the lot above it. We pour steel-reinforced concrete walls engineered for SF grades, with the drainage that decides whether a wall lasts five winters or fifty.

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FREE ON-SITE ESTIMATES
LICENSED & INSURED
PERMITS & INSPECTIONS HANDLED

SCOPE OF WORK

What a wall from us includes

Walls fail from water and shortcuts, not from concrete. Every wall we build includes the parts you can’t see once it’s backfilled.

STRUCTURE

Engineered & reinforced

Footing, steel, and wall thickness sized to the soil pushing on it. Walls over 4 feet get a structural engineer’s design and a building permit — included in the quote, not discovered mid-job.

WATER

Drainage built in

Gravel backfill, filter fabric, perforated drain pipe at the heel, and weep holes routed to an approved discharge. Hydrostatic pressure is what actually knocks walls over.

FINISH

Waterproofed & finished

Back-of-wall waterproofing, then a face finish to match the property: smooth form, board-form texture, or veneer-ready.

SITE CONDITIONS · SF SLOPES

Why SF retaining walls are their own trade

Bernal chert, Sunset sand, and fill lots each push on a wall differently. The hill decides the design.

△ Grades that load walls hard

Plenty of SF backyards sit on slopes steeper than most cities’ steepest streets. Surcharge from an uphill neighbor’s structure or driveway adds load a flat-land wall design never accounts for.

We design for the slope you have, including tiered wall systems where one tall wall would need more engineering than two short ones.

§ The 4-foot permit line

Retaining walls over 4 feet (measured from the bottom of the footing) require engineering and a building permit in San Francisco, and walls of any height supporting a surcharge usually do too.

We handle the drawings, the permit, and the inspections. An unpermitted wall becomes your problem at sale time — disclosure, retrofit, or tear-out.

≈ Atmospheric-river winters

The winters that stack storm after storm are exactly when saturated slopes move. A wall without working drainage becomes a dam.

We pair walls with French drains and surface drainage as one scope, so the water has somewhere to go before it starts pushing.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Retaining wall questions, answered straight

Do I need a permit for a retaining wall in San Francisco?

If the wall retains more than 4 feet measured from the bottom of the footing, yes — engineering and a building permit. Shorter walls that support a surcharge (a driveway, structure, or steep slope above) typically need one too. We scope this in the free estimate and include permit handling in the price.

How much does a concrete retaining wall cost?

It depends more on height, access, and soil than on length. A short garden wall and a 6-foot engineered wall on a tight hillside lot are entirely different projects. We quote from a site visit with the drainage and any engineering included, so the number you get is the number you pay.

Concrete versus wood or block — what actually lasts?

Pressure-treated wood walls in SF’s wet winters typically give you 15–25 years. Reinforced poured concrete, drained properly, is a 50-plus-year wall and the only choice we recommend where a failure would damage a structure. Block walls fall in between and depend heavily on grout and steel quality.

My existing wall is leaning. Repair or replace?

A lean usually means failed drainage, undersized design, or both — and straightening a leaning wall rarely holds. We’ll tell you honestly whether it can be drained and monitored or whether it’s replacement, and quote both paths where both are real options.

NO-COST · NO-PRESSURE

Get your free estimate

Tell us what’s cracking, settling, or waiting to be built. We’ll walk the site, measure it, and hand you a written price — free, and good whether you hire us or not.

Call now — (415) 687-3728

☎ Call (415) 687-3728 Free estimate