Melbourne's inner east and bayside suburbs are full of sloped blocks. A retaining wall is what turns an awkward slope into a level lawn, a usable entertaining area, or a driveway that works. Done well, it disappears into the garden and lasts decades.
Done badly, it leans, cracks and has to come out. We build walls that are drained, engineered where they need to be, and finished to match the house they sit behind.
Treated pine or hardwood. The natural, cost-effective option for garden walls under a metre — tiered beds, lawn edges, informal gardens. Hardwood costs more and lasts longer.
Guide: $250–$400 per m²
The structural workhorse. Strong, durable and the sensible choice for taller walls. Can be left raw for a contemporary look, or rendered and painted to match the house.
Guide: $300–$500 per m²
Bluestone, basalt and local fieldstone, dry-stacked or mortared. The premium finish, and the one that suits period homes — it looks like it has always been there, and it improves with age. See our stone masonry work.
Guide: $500–$900 per m²
Steel cages packed with stone. Modern, excellent natural drainage, and the stone fill can be chosen to pick up the colours already in your garden.
Guide: $400–$700 per m²
Nearly every failed wall we're asked to replace failed for the same reason: water. Soil behind a wall holds it, and saturated soil weighs far more than dry soil. A wall built without drainage is carrying a load nobody designed it for.
Every wall we build gets an agricultural drain, free-draining backfill and weep holes as standard. It is the least visible part of the work and the reason the wall is still straight in twenty years.
In Victoria, a retaining wall over 1m generally needs a building permit, and over 1.5m usually needs engineer certification. It also depends on your council, how close the wall is to a boundary, and the soil.
We check this before quoting and tell you up front. A permit adds time and cost; being told to demolish a non-compliant wall adds a great deal more. For the full detail, read our guide to retaining wall materials, costs and permits in Melbourne.
Retaining walls across Melbourne's inner east and bayside — Hawthorn, Kew, Camberwell, Glen Iris, Balwyn, Toorak, Malvern, Brighton and every suburb we service.
Generally yes over 1m, with engineer certification usually required over 1.5m. Council, boundary proximity and soil conditions all affect it. We check before we quote.
See the per-m² guides above. Height, site access, drainage and engineering shift those numbers a long way, so we price every wall on site rather than off a rate card.
Drainage, almost every time. See above.
Yes — and we check whether the existing footing can be reused, which can save real money. We also work out what caused the failure so the new wall doesn't repeat it.
Two to four days on site for a straightforward garden wall under 1m. Permits, engineering and difficult access extend it — permits most of all, which is why we raise them early.
Free, itemised quotes across Melbourne. We'll tell you if you need a permit.
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