Retaining Walls and Cut Banks in Asheville, NC
Hold the hill where it is.
Asheville is built on hillsides. Cut a drive or a pad into one and you have made a bank, and in West Asheville, North Asheville and up every cove off the Swannanoa, those banks are letting go. McKinley builds block, boulder and riprap walls that hold the hill where it is, with drainage behind them so they stay.
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Retaining Walls in Asheville
A city of cut banks
Almost every in-town lot in Asheville was cut into a slope to make it buildable. The house sits on a shelf, the drive is a cut, and the bank above or below it is held by whatever the builder did at the time. In the older neighborhoods that was often a dry-stacked stone wall, or nothing at all. On the newer lots at the edges of the city, it was a block wall built without drainage.
The calls McKinley gets are about the result. A wall leaning. A bank slumping onto the drive after a wet week. A crack opening in the ground above a cut.
Why water takes walls down
A retaining wall fails when the soil behind it gets heavy with water and pushes. The red clay on Asheville's slopes holds water, and the hillside above the wall keeps feeding it. So the wall he builds is a drain first. A compacted base below grade. Drainage stone and fabric behind every course as it rises. Perforated pipe at the bottom that runs to daylight somewhere that is not the neighbor's lot.
The French drain work he does on wet yards is the same idea, and the two jobs are often done together, one trench serving both.
Block, boulder or riprap
Which wall depends on the bank. Segmental block is the choice beside a house or a drive where the face will be seen and the height is modest. Boulder walls suit a long cut on a wooded lot, where the stone can be set into the slope and planted over. Riprap is for banks that are more about erosion than load: a ditch line, the toe of a slope that is washing, the outlet of a culvert.
On a steep lot the answer is often two or three low walls stepped up the hill rather than one tall one. That keeps each wall simpler and gives the water somewhere to go between them.
Permits: city or county
An Asheville address does not always mean the lot is inside the city, and that decides who to ask. Inside city limits, retaining walls run through the City of Asheville's Development Services Department at the Permit Application Center on South Charlotte Street. The city's ordinance sets standards for wall height, terracing and landscaping, and the cut behind a wall is land disturbance, so a grading permit is often in the picture too.
Past the city line, the office is Buncombe County Permits and Inspections on Woodfin Street. The county's own retaining wall rules apply to wall systems with more than ten feet of cumulative height, and those need an engineer's design and certification. The permit guide walks through it.
When it needs an engineer
The North Carolina Residential Code calls for an engineered design on some walls, by height, by what sits above them and when they cross a property line. A wall holding up a parking area or a house pad can be in that territory even when it is not tall. The weight above changes what it has to resist.
McKinley says when a wall you describe is at that point, and then he builds to the engineer's drawings. He would rather tell you that on the first visit than build it and hope. The main retaining walls page shows how each wall goes up, course by course.
Walls that go with other work
A wall is rarely the whole job. The cut it holds up was made for a drive, so the gravel drive often needs regrading at the same time. A failing wall may have an old shed or a slab behind it that is better taken out than built around.
He prices the wall and the rest as one job, with the stone, the drainage and the finish grading above in the figure. What moves the price is in the cost guide, and the estimate itself is free and on site.
Retaining Walls
Block, boulder and riprap walls that hold a cut bank up, with drainage behind them so they stay.
See the serviceTalk to McKinley(828) 540-6856
A photo of the bank from below and one from the top. McKinley walks it with you and says whether it is a wall, riprap or an engineer first.
Call nowWhat that covers
- Block walls. Segmental block on a compacted base, drainage stone and pipe behind.
- Boulder walls. Large stone set into the bank on a wooded or long cut.
- Riprap banks. Washing slopes, ditch lines and outlets armored with stone.
- Failed walls rebuilt. Leaning and collapsed walls taken down and built right.
Asheville, NC
The city M&S works out of: steep in-town lots in West Asheville and North Asheville, river-bottom ground along the French Broad and Swannanoa, and older houses with old outbuildings and concrete.
Town pageAlso in AshevilleDemolition in Asheville, NC
See the pageAlso in AshevilleConcrete Removal in Asheville, NC
See the pageAlso in AshevilleGravel Driveway Repair in Asheville, NC
See the pageThe serviceRetaining Walls
Block, boulder and riprap walls that hold a cut bank up, with drainage behind them so they stay.
Main service pageAsheville and the towns nearby
Asheville is where McKinley is based, so the city and everything around it is home ground. He builds the same walls north in Weaverville, south in Arden and east up the valley in Black Mountain. Candler, Fletcher and Hendersonville are on the list too, along with Woodfin, Swannanoa and Fairview. The Asheville page has the rest of what he does in the city.
You get McKinley. Not a crew he sent.
You call
You call or text. McKinley comes out and looks at the job with you, on the ground, rather than pricing it off a photograph.
A number first
You get one figure before anything starts, with the hauling and the finish grading in it.
He runs the machine
Then he shows up and runs the machine himself.
Ground left usable
Voids get filled, water is given a way out, and the ground is left so you can build, pour or seed.
Photos of his work.
These are photographs from actual jobs. See more recent work. Or read about the full retaining walls service.
Questions people ask
Not seeing yours? Call (828) 540-6856 and ask McKinley, or read the guides.
Do I need a permit for a retaining wall in Asheville?
Ask the office for your address before building. Inside the city it is the Development Services Department, which includes retaining walls in its residential permit guides and usually wants a grading permit for the cut. Outside the city it is Buncombe County Permits and Inspections. Which one covers you depends on the city line, not the mailing address.
How tall a wall can you build without an engineer?
The code sets the line by height, by the load above the wall and by whether it sits on a property line, so there is no single number that fits every lot. A wall under a drive can need engineering at modest height. McKinley tells you on the first visit whether your wall is there, and builds to the drawings if it is.
My old wall is leaning. Can it be repaired, or does it have to come down?
Once a block wall leans it does not stop, because the problem is the water and the base behind it, not the face. The wall comes down, the base is dug and compacted, drainage stone and pipe go in, and it is rebuilt. An old dry-stacked stone wall can sometimes be reset with a drain behind it.
Does the wall need a drain if the bank looks dry?
Yes. The bank looks dry in October and is a sponge in March. Every wall McKinley builds has drainage stone, fabric and a pipe to daylight behind it, because water behind a wall is what takes walls down. It is the cheapest part of the wall and the part that keeps it standing.
My lot is near the Swannanoa or the French Broad. Does that change anything?
It can. Helene in 2024 put the Swannanoa above its old record, and the city requires a floodplain development permit before work in a mapped flood hazard area. If the bank you want held is near the river, ask about that first, and expect riprap rather than a block wall where the water runs.
Other work he takes on
Most jobs end up being two or three of these at once, and they get quoted together.
Retaining Walls in other towns
Gravel Driveways
A new drive cut into the hill, based in lifts and crowned to shed water.
Learn moreDriveway Repair & Grading
Washouts, ruts and potholes fixed at the cause, not just regraded.
Learn moreDrainage & Erosion Control
French drains, catch basins, culverts and riprap so the property sheds water.
Learn moreRetaining Walls
Block, boulder and riprap walls that hold a cut bank up.
Learn moreLand Clearing
Lots, building sites and overgrown acreage cleared, stumps and root mat out.
Learn moreHouse Pads & Site Prep
Pads cut, filled and compacted on ground that started at anything but level.
Learn moreFree estimate in Asheville.
Where it is, how long the drive is, how steep it gets and what it is doing now. We come out, walk it, and give you a real number.
- Free on-site estimates across WNC and the Upstate
- One crew from clearing through to the last load of stone
- Drainage designed in, not sold to you afterwards
Need retaining wall work in Asheville?
Call or text McKinley. He walks the ground before he gives you a price.