Whether you are involved in a wall retaining project for the first time or the nth time, you may have already heard of king post walls and what they can do. The proper retaining wall will make a vast difference in your property and the safety of your location, effectively preventing soil erosion and water buildup. But whilst you may have different choices regarding your retaining wall system, king post walls have more than a few qualities and characteristics that make them stand out.
So if you are planning and building a retaining wall for your property, here’s our guide to king post walls.
What is a King Post Wall
A king post wall is a wall comprised of in-fill panels and king posts, and many construction specialists and builders make use of them whenever they have to work with hard ground. These walls are cost-effective at retaining earth or soil, and you can also use them on a temporary or permanent basis.
If you cannot work with sheet piles because the ground is too hard, you can drill the ground and insert posts at pre-determined spots or centres. You can then in-fill them horizontally using a system of panels lined together. Your system for panel lining can be made of pre-cast concrete, architectural pre-cast, steel sheet piling, timber, or cladding.
Pre-cast concrete is easy to customise as you can have it made to suit the precise size you want, whilst architectural pre-cast often has a formed and sleek finish that can also meet your requirements. Steel sheet piling is lighter than pre-cast concrete panels, and you can extract them and reuse them. Timber is another option, and you can choose either recycled wood or new wood. You can also select cladding, where you can clad the panels with various products made from brick, stone, or even coloured glass or plastic.
The Uses of King Post Walls
As mentioned, king post walls are beneficial for earth or soil retention, although you can also use them for other purposes and applications. More often than not, however, king post walls are the best option for retaining walls if the ground is too difficult to manage, especially if you are dealing with rock. In terms of uses, you can use king post walls for embankments, basements or cellars, and flood defence.
The Benefits of King Post Walls
King post walls have some premium benefits, and one of these is the fact that they are fast to install. They are also cost-effective, as stated, and they are highly versatile. King post walls are often the best option for challenging ground. Another benefit of king post walls is that they are vibrationless and silent. It is easy for anyone to construct them even in tight boundaries where you have to set them upright against other structures.
You can use king post walls as bearing piles, particularly for support for superstructures made of steel frame, eliminating the need to build on-site pile caps. Another advantage of the king post wall is that you can construct it from lower-level platforms, and this allows you to save on the cost of building different platform levels for the construction of adjacent piled wall systems.
