Retaining Wall Contractor in Liberty Lake, WA: Poured Concrete & Block Walls

Poured concrete and block retaining walls in Liberty Lake, built with the footings and drainage that keep them standing through freeze-thaw winters. Raven Buildings excavates, forms, pours and backfills retaining walls for sloped yards, driveway cuts, patios and shop pads across Liberty Lake, from the neighborhoods near the lake and the golf courses to the hillsides south of the freeway.

Retaining walls we build in Liberty Lake

• Poured concrete walls: reinforced cast-in-place walls for driveway cuts, shop pads and taller grade changes
• Block walls: segmental block walls for yards, garden terraces and patio edges
• The work around the wall: excavation, drain rock, perforated drain pipe, and the driveway, patio or slab on top, poured by our own crew
• Walls tied to a bigger job: leveling a pad for a shop or metal building before we build it

Do you need a permit for a retaining wall in Liberty Lake?

The City of Liberty Lake's Community Development Department issues building permits inside city limits. Its residential permit handout and application forms spell out the retaining wall rules:

• No building permit: retaining walls less than 4 feet high are on the City's list of work that doesn't need a permit, along with sidewalks and driveways
• Over 4 feet: the City's application says walls greater than 4 feet need engineered drawings and an additional building permit, and a house permit's site plan has to show every retaining wall's height, with engineering for any over 4 feet
• Measure from the footing: the state's building code measures the 4-foot exemption from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall, and it doesn't apply to a wall supporting a surcharge, like a driveway, a building's footing or a slope that keeps rising behind it
• Grading: the City's application asks whether more than 100 cubic yards of dirt will be moved, and if so a grading permit is required under the City code
• Steep lots: the forms also ask about slopes over 30% (a 30-foot rise in 100 feet), and the City can require studies such as a geotechnical evaluation for specific site features
• Outside city limits: land outside Liberty Lake is permitted by Spokane County, which uses the same 4-foot, no-surcharge exemption

Our retaining wall permit guide compares Liberty Lake's neighbors, the City of Spokane, Spokane Valley and the County.

When a wall has to be engineered

IRC Section R404.4 requires a retaining wall to be designed to accepted engineering practice when it isn't braced at the top and holds back more than 48 inches of unbalanced fill, or when it's over 24 inches tall and carries loads beyond the soil. That design checks overturning, sliding, soil pressure under the footing and water uplift, with a 1.5 safety factor against sliding and overturning. When your wall crosses those lines, we tell you up front and build it to the engineer's design.

Built for Liberty Lake freeze-thaw

Liberty Lake's construction design criteria set footings at least 24 inches below finished grade, and NOAA's 1991-2020 normals for nearby Spokane International Airport show about 132 nights a year at or below freezing. Water trapped behind a wall freezes, pushes on it and softens the soil under its base, so every wall we build gets:

• Free-draining backfill of clean gravel or crushed rock
• A perforated drain pipe at the base with a real outlet
• Filter fabric between native soil and the drain rock
• Weep holes or drain board on poured concrete walls

Our frost depth guide covers footing depths town by town.

What a Liberty Lake retaining wall costs

Every wall is priced from its height, length, material, access and whether it needs engineering, so we quote each one after a site visit rather than publishing a per-square-foot number. Request a free quote with your address and a photo of the slope, and we'll come look.

Why Liberty Lake owners call Raven

• One contractor for the wall and the concrete: we pour the driveways, patios and slabs that often sit on top of a wall in Liberty Lake
• Buildings, too: if the wall is for a shop pad, see our Liberty Lake metal building page
• Next door, too: we build walls in Spokane Valley and Spokane. Compare materials in our guide to block, poured and boulder walls

Get a Liberty Lake retaining wall quote

Call 509-350-2016 or request a free quote. Tell us the wall's rough height and length, what's above it, and your address. See our concrete flatwork services.

Sources

• City of Liberty Lake, Residential Building Permits handout
• City of Liberty Lake, Residential Building Permit Application
• City of Liberty Lake, Site Improvement Permit Application
• City of Liberty Lake, Construction Design Criteria
• Spokane County BP-25, Permit Exemptions
• WAC 51-51-003, Washington's adoption of the International Residential Code
• ICC Significant Changes, IRC Section R404.4 Retaining Walls
• NOAA NCEI, 1991-2020 Monthly Normals, Spokane International Airport