It's never really straight. Hills and waves can be found on almost every property. Therefore, terraces at the house usually have to be piled up or placed on stilts. Or take a look at our proposal: Simply dig your barbecue area into the slope.
Only rarely is the garden at the same level as the floor on the ground floor of the house. Often the houses stand on a small warp – as they say in northern Germany. Or it protrudes a piece of the cellar from the ground. What is very practical for the basement windows, also has disadvantages for planning a terrace. To get to the same floor height as in the house, you have to pour sand or put the terrace on stilts.
But there is another possibility.: You do without it, to "live" outside on the same level as inside, and relocates its open-air seat five, six steps deeper into the garden. Do you still want to stay close to the house, as in our example, you have to work the seat a bit into the warp, That means: create a slope reinforcement. The same technique can also be applied to hillside plots.
It will be a cozy place, If it succeeds, not only to build a wall in the slope towards the house, but to form a corner like here.
A solid wooden wall withstands the pressure of the earth masses.
Before the first bench can be set up, earthworks are pending. The slope gets a steep wall, which must be fixed.
At low altitudes, as in our case, it is sufficient, only about one strong post in the size of a garden sleeper per meter width in the ground- fl digging and connecting the posts with strong boards -of course, on the side facing the slope, because a large pressure of the earth masses is to be expected. Since the wood is constantly con- A.. in tact with the soil moisture, Only special garden wood such as pressure-treated pine is suitable for this. In addition to wood, you will also need some concrete paving slabs for the top finish of the structure and clinker bricks, if you want to run the border the same way we do. And last but not least, get some sand: to fill in the post holes, to underpin the concrete slabs and to prepare the ground. Whether you later him with plates, with a wooden deck or how we want to lay it out with pavers: In any case, you need a level surface.
A boardwalk as a way to the seat
■ The drawing above suggests it, and also the illustrations on the pages 8 and 9 let it be guessed: The stairs from the seat lead to a wooden walkway, which runs parallel to the house. The substructure consists of concrete slabs, the edge of red clinker pavers. How to create such a path, we will show you in detail in our current garden special 22/95. The construction principle is explained there using the example of a terrace.
The wooden bench, consists of two straight and one diagonal element, is fitted exactly into the seating area. The seat boards are made of the same construction material as the leg frames: bar (saddle beam) in the dimensions 4,5 x 9,4 cm.
The visible wall of vertical planks serves as cladding. The pressure of the earth acts only on the thicker ones, horizontally attached boards at the back of the strong posts. Concrete slabs form the upper end.
Garden sleepers serve as posts for embankment attachment, which you saw to length and notched at the top for the crossbeams.
The posts have to be buried about halfway. It is best to work with a perforated spade and measure again and again.
Before the final insertion, strong boards are screwed behind the first three posts. This completes the first part of the retaining wall. Together with the retaining wall, the three posts can now be used simultaneously. Align carefully when filling!
The wall for the second side is built the same as the first. The top board overhangs the posts by the thickness of the joists.
With supports you can still push the posts into the right position and fix them, so they stay straight when filling the holes.
You should also measure diagonally and establish a uniform post height, before pouring in the sand and tamping down. The boards of the corner wall are held together by slats. Once deployed, you can insert the supporting beams at the top.