Customer Reviews

Retaining Walls: A Building Guide and Design Gallery (Schiffer Books)

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This guide is useful provided the readers are (1)absolutely sure they will be using concrete block (such as E.P.Henry in our area)--no real stone or other material allowed and (2) the project budget is tens if not hundreds of thousand of dollars. The lower right hand corner of the cover says it all "National Concrete Masonry Association Tina Skinner".
If, as are most of us, one is looking for ideas and methods to deal with troublesome slopes and steps then by all means start with the "Sunset" series of garden design books instead or go to your concrete block dealer and pick up all the free design and construction materials that are readily available

This book contains technical information about how to build a retaining wall, as well as dozens of inspiring photos that will give you idea after idea for your retaining wall. This is probably the only book you'll need if you're thinking about building a retaining wall.

Don't waste your money. When I ordered this book I was hoping to get creative ideas for retaining walls. The other review stated the only thing in this book was cement but I figured there would be some creative things that you could do with cement included in the book. Boy was I wrong! The entire book shows how to make basic walls from those cheesy Home Depot cement blocks. Literally half of the book is a gallery of wall after wall that all look essentially the same. If I wanted to see that mess I would take a drive through the burbs on a Sunday afternoon. My existing garden has reclaimed cement walls, portions of wall made from vegetablers I caste in cement, etc., and I was hoping to expand on that. There are no "artsy", "creative" or "craftmanship" type of ideas included in this book. Extremely disappointing! Seeing as it is a book sponsored by the cement masonry association, it's just a venue for them to promote those unsightly pre-fab Home Depot blocks. I would 100% return this book if I had not had so many problems with Amazon and returns in the past!