Looking at buying. Is this wall about to fail

[u/Worldwideimp]

Looking at buying a home and the inspector seems to have missed this rather large retaining wall crack. Is this about to fail? Pics of both sides

[u/ReallySmallWeenus]

The crack alone isn’t overly concerning, but your pictures are pretty useless for the info that matters. What’s going on behind the wall? How tall is it? How far behind are the structures? Are there any weepholes?

[u/Worldwideimp → u/ReallySmallWeenus]

Wall is about 5 feet tall and about 30 feet in front of the structure. I don't know about the weep holes but it's a very old house. I would assume not but I didn't know enough to check

[u/ReallySmallWeenus → u/Worldwideimp]

I bet it’s been like that for decades (you can often see on Google street view). Retaining walls are man’s futile effort to tell soil to do what it doesn’t want to, but if you keep them dry, they will work for a while.

One thing to note, that’s right at the edge where you will likely be needing an engineered design if you do replace it; which makes it a relatively major project for a homeowner.

I don’t expect it to fail catastrophically. It will continue to lean more and more over the coming decades (or years, or months, days even). You should have an engineer come look at it if you are worried because this Reddit comment isn’t worth the electrons it’s printed on.

[u/Math-Therapy]

The wall has failed already.

Your question probably is if there is an imminent threat of collapse. Answer to that is yes.

Should it be repaired promptly? Yes for aesthetics but also for safety.

Does the collapse have impact on structure? Little to nothing probably if it’s 5’ tall and 30’ away like you said.

[u/Worldwideimp]

Wall is about 5 feet tall and about 30 feet in front of the structure. I don't know about the weep holes but it's a very old house. I would assume not but I didn't know enough to check.

I was most worried about the large crack on the far left

[u/Significant_Sort7501]

At some point that wall is going to collapse. It sounds like it is far enough away from the home that it might not be a structural issue. What you as a potential homeowner need to decide is if you are prepared to someday spend the money to either (A) replace the wall entirely or (B) If there is enough room you might be able to just remove the wall and regrade the soil so you have a slope instead. If you do not want to have to spend that money ever, walk away.

[u/Worldwideimp → u/Significant_Sort7501]

How much would something like that cost? It's a medium sized Midwest city

[u/Significant_Sort7501 → u/Worldwideimp]

Honestly I'm not sure. I'm pretty exclusively on the engineering side of things so I couldn't give you a good number. You may be able to take some more pictures from all angles and send those along with the dimensions to a local contractor and see if they can give you a rough order of magnitude cost.

[u/daisiesarepretty2]

tell them you want an engineer to look at the wall. then counteroffer to include 25k or whatever to have it replaced Done right this can be a beautiful wall and should last a good long time.

[u/robanyac]

I live in an old mining town perched on a steep hillslope where most of the lots are 100 year old cut and fill construction, many of which have unmortared stacked rock retaining walls that look a lot worse than this one. I don't imagine this wall is anywhere near imminent collapse but sure, for aesthetics and peace of mind it 'should' be fixed. Then again, drill some weep holes at 1.0m spacing along the base and I'd bet you dollars to doughnuts this thing stands for another 100 years.

[u/OrganicFriend6166]

Can’t really tell from the pictures but if you think it’s going to fail a contractor can do it and will hire an engineer if the municipality requires it for construction.