Local team
Melbourne based, family run and operated
Local teamHigh quality fleetCompany established 2012Free on-site quotesFamily run and operated5 star serviceLocal teamHigh quality fleetCompany established 2012Free on-site quotesFamily run and operated5 star service
Local teamHigh quality fleetCompany established 2012Free on-site quotesFamily run and operated5 star service
Retaining walls Mickleham
Mickleham has gone from paddocks to one of the fastest growing suburbs in the country inside a decade, and the ground has not changed to suit it. Blocks here sit on the northern basalt plain with rock close enough to the surface to matter in a footing trench, and most of these estates were graded before titles were issued. That combination is why retaining walls are on so many Mickleham build programs. Kosta & Sons build them, and we are twenty minutes down Mickleham Road from the yard.
Retaining Wall Builders Working Mickleham Ground
The single most useful thing to know about digging in Mickleham is how little soil there is over the rock. Geotechnical work done for the Lindum Vale precinct, east of Mickleham Road and north of Mount Ridley Road, logged the profile as roughly nought to 400 millimetres of topsoil over clayey silt and silty clay, and then basalt.
Four hundred millimetres is not much more than a spade depth. Footings for a structural wall usually go deeper, which means on a lot of Mickleham blocks the footing trench turns into a rock job before it is a concrete job. Because we carry our own breakers, that costs you hours.
There is loose rock as well as solid rock. A heritage survey of the Lindum Vale paddocks recorded about 3.8 kilometres of stone lines and wall remnants, most of it stone the farmers had simply piled up after clearing it off the surface. That is the receipt for how much basalt sits in the top of the ground here.
Mount Ridley, and Why the Rock Is Where It Is
Mickleham does not just happen to have basalt near the surface. Mount Ridley, just south of Mickleham off Mount Ridley Road, is one of the named eruption points that fed the lava flows through this catchment. The flows themselves are thin, often between half a metre and eight metres, but they stack and they sit high.
The practical effect on a block is that rock depth is not consistent across a site. One corner can dig clean and the next can hit refusal at half a metre. It is why we would rather walk a Mickleham block and look at what has come out of the lots either side than quote a footing depth off a plan.
The same basalt weathers down into the grey-brown clays that sit above it, and clays of that kind are typically reactive: they swell wet and shrink dry. What your own block is classed as comes from the soil report, not from us.
Estates, Levels and Where Walls End Up
Most of our Mickleham work is in the growth-corridor estates: Merrifield, which is a masterplan of over 900 hectares and more than 5,000 homes, plus Lindum Vale, Annadale, Botanical and the newer releases around the town centre.
The land itself is not steep. Grades through Lindum Vale run about half a per cent to two per cent, falling east, dropping roughly six metres across the precinct. Merrifield West sits between 220 and 280 metres and falls away to the north east towards Kalkallo Creek. Gentle ground, but gentle ground still produces level differences once lots are cut flat for slabs, and estate design guidelines here assume it: Annadale caps walls at 1.2 metres unless they are terraced or sloped back to break up the height, and does not permit timber sleeper walls over 200 millimetres where they are visible from the street or a reserve. Merrifield's guidelines set an objective of minimising cut and fill and ask for finished floor and site levels showing changes from original.
One thing worth knowing if you are checking your council: postcode 3064 also covers Donnybrook, which sits in Whittlesea. Mickleham itself is wholly Hume.
Drainage on a Mickleham Block
Eastern Mickleham drains to Merri Creek by way of Malcolm Creek and Aitken Creek, and western Mickleham drains the other way entirely, to the Maribyrnong through Deep Creek. A catchment divide runs through the suburb.
What matters on your block is smaller than that. Across the developable east there are almost no natural waterways, only farm drains, so water has to be actively sent somewhere rather than finding its own way off. On clay with rock underneath, water that gets behind a wall has no reliable way out. It perches on the clay rather than soaking away, so it has to be piped somewhere.
Every wall we build here gets drainage behind it as standard. Hume's landscape guidelines for development works ask for agricultural drainage pipes and weep holes where appropriate, and name stone, concrete or concrete sleepers rather than timber. Those guidelines cover landscape works submitted with a development rather than a private back garden, but the drainage detail behind them is what we build to either way.
On a Mickleham block the wall is rarely the whole job. Getting the lot to a level is a site cut, the basalt in the footing trench is rock removal, and the line behind the wall is drainage. We are up the road in Tullamarine. See retaining walls across Melbourne.
Because rock sets how deep a footing can practically go here, it is worth understanding what decides post depth before you compare quotes.
Why us
Built to Last in Mickleham
We also specialise in rock breaking and retaining walls, ensuring stability for your building construction projects.
- Commercial-grade materials and proper engineering on every wall
- Sleeper, besser block, rock and timber, matched to the ground
- Drainage handled properly behind the wall, not as an afterthought
- Free on-site quote, with a straight answer on what the block needs
High quality fleet
Tipper trucks, mini excavators and specialised earthmoving equipment
Established 2012
Over 13+ years of site preparation and bulk excavation
100% satisfaction
Free quotes across the Melbourne metropolitan area
What else we do
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The quality you deserve, and dependability you can count on.
Questions
Retaining Walls Mickleham, Answered
Will you hit rock building a retaining wall in Mickleham?
Often, yes. Geotechnical logging in the area found as little as 400 millimetres of topsoil over clay and then basalt, and footings for anything structural go deeper than that. It is not a problem, it just has to be priced and planned rather than discovered on the day. We carry our own breakers and rippers.
Do you work in the Merrifield and Annadale estates?
Yes, and across Lindum Vale, Botanical and the newer releases around the Mickleham town centre. We are based in Tullamarine, so the whole northern corridor is a straightforward run.
What material suits a Mickleham block?
Concrete sleeper for most structural work, and it also suits what Hume's landscape guidance asks for on retaining and feature walls, which names stone, concrete or concrete sleepers rather than timber. Rock walls can work well here given how much basalt comes out of the ground locally. We will tell you what the block needs rather than what we would rather build.
Can you do the wall and the site cut together?
Yes. Doing them together avoids a handover, and it means whoever finds the rock is the same crew that has to deal with it.
Building a retaining wall in Mickleham?
Send through the details and Rick will come out, look at the ground, and quote it properly.
Prefer to talk? Call 0456 614 439