Retaining walls in Windham, Maine.
Windham's comprehensive plan notes that very steep ground is uncommon in town, but where it exists it sits close to water. The plan maps slopes of 15 to 25 percent along the western and southeastern shores of Little Sebago Lake and the southern shore of Forest Lake, with moderate 8 to 15 percent grades scattered through town, often beside a waterbody. The high points are Mount Hunger, west of Little Sebago, and Atherton Hill, southwest of Forest Lake, both reaching 500 to 600 feet.
Those are the lots where a wall earns its keep, turning a slope that sheds soil toward the lake into level terraces that hold it.
Why the town cares about a failing slope
The plan points out that even moderate slopes near water deliver sediment and nutrients into lakes and rivers. Watershed work around Highland Lake has installed 179 erosion-control practices that together keep an estimated 300 tons of sediment a year out of the lake, according to the town. A bank that slumps each spring works against all of that.
Windham's Surface Water Protection Ordinance, Chapter 142 of the Land Use Ordinance, carries erosion and sedimentation controls across every watershed in town, not just the shoreland zone. Wall construction disturbs soil, so silt fence and stabilization come with the job, and inside the shoreland zone or next to a stream the state's Natural Resources Protection Act can add a permit step for soil movement.
Choosing boulder, block or granite veneer
Natural boulder walls suit the wooded slopes above Little Sebago and Forest Lake, where a terraced look fits the shoreline and the stones can be set to leave planting pockets. Segmental block is the structural answer behind a new house on a cut slope, a common need on subdivision lots where the house pad was cut into a hillside. Granite veneer walls with pillars fit entries and front yards closer to Route 302 and the village areas.
Whatever the face, the engineering is the same: a compacted footing below the frost line, free-draining stone behind the wall, and a way out for the water. On the sandy Hermon and Windsor soils water moves through quickly; on Scantic and other glaciomarine silts in the lower ground it lingers, and a drain line behind the wall is what keeps frost pressure from pushing the face out.
Granite · Boulder · Block
How we handle retaining walls
Whether it is a granite veneer entry wall with lantern pillars, a terraced boulder slope or a structural block wall behind a new build, we engineer for drainage and frost so the wall you pay for once stands for decades.
See the full retaining walls service page or everything we do in Windham, Maine.
Retaining Walls in nearby towns
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