Salem, Utah
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Grading, drainage and retaining walls for Salem lots, from wet ground near the pond to the Salem Hills bench, built to Salem's wall code and built to stay straight.
“The team painstakingly put in a retaining wall that will stand for a hundred years.”
“I will be using them for all of my landscape needs, a pleasure to work with!”
Grading and Retaining Walls in Salem
Salem spells out its retaining wall rules in City Code 10-12-13. A wall needs a permit and engineered plans if it is over 4 feet tall, or if its exposed face is over 30 inches, or if it holds up a surcharge like a driveway, a patio or a slope above it. Walls over 10 feet have to be terraced. That 30 inch rule is the one that catches homeowners off guard, because a wall that short does not look like a big deal.
The rules make sense once you see the ground. Salem sits on Lake Bonneville clay and silt that holds water and moves. Around Salem Pond and the Water Canyon springs, groundwater sits shallow. Wet clay behind a wall is heavy, and it pushes. Up on the Salem Hills bench toward Loafer Mountain, the slope adds load from above. A wall that ignores either one leans, bulges, or comes down.
Grading comes first on every Salem job. Before we stack a single block, we figure out where the water on your lot comes from and where it can go. On the flats, that means moving water off the house and out of low spots. On the bench, it means catching runoff from the hill above. We confirm current requirements with Salem City on every wall and bring in an engineer when the code calls for one.
Salem grew up around a spring-fed pond, and it shows: parts of town sit over shallow groundwater, so drainage and hardscape footings near the low areas need a real plan, not a guess.
Know your Salem ground
The Salem challenges
Salem clay soaks up water from rain, sprinklers and shallow groundwater. Behind a wall with no drain, it gets heavy and swells. That pressure tips walls forward, splits block courses, and shoves boulder walls out at the top until a rock rolls loose.
Some Salem yards sit low near the pond or right over spring flow. Water pools there after a storm and stays for days. The lawn goes soft and smells sour, fence posts rot, and a nearby basement can start taking on water in a wet spring.
In Salem, a wall face over 30 inches can trigger a permit and engineering, even when the wall is under 4 feet overall. A short-looking wall by a patio or a sport court can cross that line. Building first and asking later can mean taking the wall back out.
A driveway, patio, shed or slope sitting above a wall adds weight. Salem's code treats that as a surcharge, which also calls for a permit and engineered plans. On Salem Hills lots, almost every upper terrace carries something, so we assume a surcharge until the layout proves otherwise.
The J&H approach
We map the water on your lot first: downspouts, runoff from the hill, and wet spots near the pond. Then we grade swales, add drains, and set wall locations so water goes around the walls or through a drain behind them, never pooled against them.
Behind each wall goes a column of clean drain rock wrapped in fabric, so the clay cannot clog it, with a perforated pipe along the footing that carries water out to daylight. In wet Salem ground, that drain is the part that keeps the wall standing for the long haul.
On a slope, we plan terraces so each wall stays inside the limits where that makes sense, with room between them for planting. When the yard needs a taller wall, we get it engineered and permitted, then build it to the stamped plans.
From our job sites
Short videos from real J&H job sites. Tap one to play it with sound.
What homeowners say
"We had a really big project (full lot project) and a crazy timeline, and Jackson and his team were awesome. They are very efficient, work hard to get things done quick, and the quality of their work is top-notch. Great company. Great guys. I would highly recommend them for any landscaping needs."
"Jackson and his crew did a phenomenal job on our back yard. I had a vision and they brought it to life. We had them do a retaining wall, grading, underground trampoline, sprinkler system, and sod. They met deadlines, communication was on point, and the whole crew was friendly.…"
"…The job was completed quickly without sacrificing quality, and the results exceeded our expectations. We would absolutely hire this team again and recommend them to anyone looking for landscaping help."
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