Retaining walls for Morgantown's hills

How it works

1. Call or send a request

   Tell us where the property is and what the wall or slope is doing.

2. We connect you

   Your call goes to an independent retaining wall contractor that serves Morgantown and Monongalia County.

3. They call you back

   They come out, look at the ground and quote the job directly.

Who is this for?

Homeowners, landlords and small property owners in Morgantown, Westover, Star City, Cheat Lake and the rest of Monongalia County who need a wall built, fixed or replaced. Morgantown climbs steeply up from the Monongahela River, which sits at about 800 feet at the city's lowest point, and neighborhoods like Wiles Hill, South Park, Suncrest and First Ward are full of houses, rentals and driveways stacked on terraced lots. On ground like that, a retaining wall is often the only thing keeping a yard, a parking pad or a sidewalk where it belongs.

Why is landslide risk such a big deal here?

Because Monongalia County has a lot of buildings on unstable ground. A statewide landslide risk assessment by West Virginia University's GIS Technical Center found 2,967 primary structures in the county sitting in high or medium landslide susceptibility areas, the second most of any county in the state, and 919 of them are inside Morgantown. The same report names slope steepness as the biggest factor and points to construction, tree clearing and poorly designed drainage as common contributors in built-up areas. Retaining walls sit right at the center of all three.

What kinds of walls do contractors build here?

• Segmental concrete block. Interlocking units stacked dry, with geogrid reinforcement in the backfill for taller walls. The most common choice for yards and driveways.
• Natural stone. Dry-laid or mortared stone, or a stone veneer over a concrete core. Common on older properties near downtown and in the river towns.
• Poured concrete. Reinforced walls for heavy loads, like a wall holding up a street-side parking pad or sitting close to a foundation.
• Timber. Railroad ties and landscape timbers were cheap to install decades ago. Many are rotting now and are the walls people most often call about.

Which one fits depends on how tall the wall needs to be, what sits above it, how wet the hillside stays and whether a machine can even reach the spot. Compare block, stone and timber walls.

What makes a wall fail on a Morgantown hillside?

• Water with nowhere to go. Morgantown averages a little over 43 inches of precipitation a year, with the wettest stretch from May through July. Soil behind a wall with no gravel and no drain pipe stays saturated and pushes hard.
• Clay soil. The West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey lists heavy rain, clay soil and steep slopes as the biggest landslide factors in the state. Clay holds water and swells, which is the opposite of what you want behind a wall.
• Loads it wasn't built for. A car parked at the top, a new shed, or fill dumped above the wall adds pressure the original design never planned on.
• Age and rot. Timber walls lose strength from the inside, and old mortared walls crack as freeze-thaw cycles work into the joints.
• A slope that's moving anyway. Sometimes the wall isn't the problem; the hill behind it is slipping, and the wall is just where it shows first.

Signs your wall needs attention

• The face is leaning outward or bulging partway up
• Blocks have slid forward, caps have popped off or stones have dropped out
• Soil or mud is washing out at the base or through joints
• The yard, sidewalk or driveway above the wall has cracked or dropped
• Water pours out of the bottom of the wall after a storm, or the ground behind it never dries
• Timbers feel soft when you push a screwdriver into them

If you see any of these, it's cheaper to have someone look now than after the next wet spring. More on wall repair.

When does the drainage matter more than the wall?

More often than people expect. A lot of Morgantown properties take runoff from the street, the neighbor's lot or the hill above, and that water ends up behind the wall. A good contractor will look at where the water comes from, not just at the cracked blocks. Fixes can include a perforated drain at the base of the wall, clean stone backfill, a swale or curtain drain above it, and tying downspouts into a pipe that carries water away. More on hillside drainage.

Do I need a permit or an engineer?

Possibly. Inside Morgantown, the city says a building permit is needed whenever a structure is built, altered or repaired, and applications are reviewed by its Code Enforcement office. Westover, Star City and other towns handle their own permits, and county rules apply elsewhere. Tall walls and walls supporting a driveway, building or steep slope are the ones most likely to need an engineer's design. Your contractor should confirm what applies at your address. See the Morgantown retaining wall guide for more.

Are you a wall contractor?

No. Morgantown Retaining Walls is a referral service. We pass your call or request to an independent contractor that serves your address, and that contractor inspects, designs, prices, builds and warranties the work. Before you sign anything, read our tips for hiring a wall contractor.

Areas we cover

• Morgantown
• Westover
• Star City
• Cheat Lake

Planning ahead? Read our Morgantown retaining wall guide.