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

To much engineer,not clear use to much the metric ,and not U.S.system feet,and inches

A work in progress but thanks to the book I had a clue what I was doing

I bought this book expecting a "how to" book. Not necessarily detailed projects, but how this or that feature is achieved. Instead I got a little bit of technical stuff at the beginning, on how plain vanilla walls are built, and then most of the book consisted of a gallery of pictures of retaining walls. If you saw a feature in one of them you liked, you were left as clueless about how to do it as at the beginning.If you're embarking on a retaining wall system challenging enough to require some of the technical data at the front of the book, you should be hiring a specialist. If you just want to build a DIY wall, but with some fancy touches, this book will be utterly useless to you. Honestly, it reads as though somebody started a textbook for retaining wall engineers, and then gave up after chapter 1, and just filled the book with all the pictures of retaining walls they could find.I would recommend you get Hillside Landscaping by Sunset books. As much detail useful to a DIY, and a lot more ideas.

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!

The pictures are very helpful and the book is full of great ideas. It is a good buy for the money.

This book is for basic landscape walls. gives beginner (laymen’s) a good idea of wall designs and options.

Good book