Garden walls in Merthyr Tydfil have a harder life than most. The town sits high at the head of the Taff valley, on the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons, so its brickwork is soaked by frequent heavy rain and then frozen on cold nights. Add steep terraced gardens where the walls are holding up soil as well as standing in the weather, and you can see why so many of them crack, bulge or shed their faces.
Tony and the team build brickwork and garden walls in Merthyr Tydfil with that climate in mind: frost-resistant brick, a mortar to suit it, coping that throws water clear, and drainage behind anything that retains soil. Visits and quotes are free, so get in touch. Our Merthyr Tydfil landscaping page shows the wider work we do in the town.
The six kinds of wall and step work we build, and what the upland rain and cold mean for each in Merthyr Tydfil.
Boundary walls in Merthyr Tydfil stand exposed on both faces and the top, so we choose brick rated for severe exposure and finish them with an overhanging coping and a damp proof course near the base.
On the steep plots behind many Merthyr Tydfil terraces, a retaining wall is what makes a garden usable at all, and we never build one without free-draining stone and weep holes behind it.
Steps in a wet Merthyr Tydfil garden need a slight fall on each tread so water runs off rather than pooling and freezing, plus a textured finish that stays grippy in the rain.
Raised beds lift planting out of cold, waterlogged ground, which is useful in Merthyr Tydfil, as long as they are built with an open base or drainage holes so they do not turn into tanks.
Gate piers and pillars take the full force of the weather on their caps, so on Merthyr Tydfil jobs we pay close attention to the cap stone and the joints just below it, where frost usually gets in first.
Much of our repair work in Merthyr Tydfil is frost damage: bricks with their faces blown off, washed-out joints and coping that has come loose, all of which let even more water into the wall.
Brick and mortar are porous. When a wall is saturated and the temperature drops below freezing, the water in it expands and pushes the surface apart a little at a time. One hard winter might not show much, but a few years of wet, cold weather will spall ordinary bricks and crumble weak joints. In Merthyr Tydfil that cycle comes round often.
The answer is to keep water out of the wall in the first place and to use materials that tolerate what does get in. That means a coping with drips that overhang both faces, frost-resistant bricks at ground level where splashback is worst, joints that are properly filled and tooled, and no flat tops for rain to sit on.
A retaining wall holding dry soil is doing a steady job. Saturate that same soil and the pressure on the back of the wall rises sharply, which is exactly what happens on a Merthyr Tydfil hillside after a week of rain. Most failed retaining walls we look at have no drainage behind them at all.
Every retaining wall we build here gets a footing on firm ground, a layer of clean stone behind the wall to let water drop through, weep holes at the base and, where the ground is very wet, a perforated pipe to carry water away. Taller walls, or walls holding up a path, a building or a neighbour's garden, may need an engineer's design, and we will say so at the first visit. Read when a retaining wall needs engineering advice and our local guide to terracing a steep Merthyr Tydfil garden.
We build for the weather the town actually gets, not for a dry day in the brochure.
Brick, mortar and coping are chosen for frost and heavy rain, because ordinary facing brick struggles at this height.
Stone backfill, weep holes and somewhere for the water to go are part of every retaining wall we price.
If a wall needs an engineer, or a word with the council or a neighbour, we tell you before you commit.
Walls, paving and steps are planned as one, so each level drains and meets the next properly.
Water that comes out of a retaining wall has to go somewhere, and it should not be into the back of your house or across next door's yard. Before we build, we look at where water already runs when it rains hard, where it could be collected, and whether a channel, a soakaway or a connection to an existing drain makes sense.
It often makes sense to sort drainage and walls in the same job, because the trenches and the levels are shared. Our guide to garden drainage solutions in Merthyr Tydfil explains the options, and retaining and boundary walls in Merthyr Tydfil covers the walls themselves in more depth.
The town's older terraces date from its days as the iron capital of Wales, and many still have stone garden walls laid in lime mortar. Patching those with a hard cement mix traps moisture in the stone and speeds up the damage, so we repoint in a mortar that suits the wall and rebuild only the sections that have really moved, reusing sound stone.
Newer estates bring different jobs: boundary walls to replace fencing that keeps blowing down, low walls to finish a front garden and steps up to a sloping back lawn. Where a wall and a fence share a boundary, our fencing in Merthyr Tydfil can be planned alongside the brickwork, and garden wall foundations explains the groundwork that goes under both.
Real reviews from homeowners across Merthyr Tydfil — rated 4.8 out of 5 on Google from 69 reviews and 10/10 on Checkatrade.
“Had my patio done by the company and could not be happier. Top quality work done and quickly too.”
“I was pleased to find Tony and his lads were absolutely great! Tony responded quickly & was very polite.”
“We were delighted with the work and materials, which were of very high quality. Tony and team helped us.”
Local and practical guides to help you plan the work.
One team for the whole garden, so a single visit can price everything you have in mind.
We cover Merthyr Tydfil and the towns around it. Choose another area below.
T J Landscapes South Wales
24 Conway Road, Pontypool
Torfaen, NP4 6HL
We cover homes right across South Wales, from Cardiff and the coast up to the valleys and the Brecon Beacons.
That is almost always frost. Water soaks into the brick, freezes and pushes the face off. It usually means the wall is staying too wet, often from a missing or poor coping or from soil banked against it. We can replace the damaged bricks and deal with the cause.
Look for a bulge or lean, cracks that open wider over time, water that comes out in odd places, and soil or paving dropping behind the top of the wall. If you see any of these in a Merthyr Tydfil garden, keep heavy loads off the top and ask us to have a look.
Mortar should not be laid in frost or heavy rain, so some winter days are lost to the weather. We plan around it, cover new work and keep going when conditions allow, which in Merthyr Tydfil means watching the forecast closely.
Height, length, footing depth, the drainage behind it, the material, how much soil has to be dug out and removed, and how far it all has to be carried. Steep access adds time. The quote is free, so ask us round.
Tell us what the wall or steps need to do, roughly how big they are and where in Merthyr Tydfil you are, and we will arrange a free visit.
