Common questions

Often, but not always — and the answer depends on more than just height.

Approval is generally triggered by some combination of how tall the wall is, how close it sits to a boundary, whether anything loads it from above (a driveway, a pool, a structure, or fill), and what your particular council requires. Two walls of identical height on different sites can get different answers.

We work out what applies to your site before quoting, and we'll tell you straight if it needs engineering or certification rather than finding out halfway through.

It depends on the job, and any figure quoted off a website would be a guess.

What moves the price: height, length, the material, how much access there is for machinery, what the drainage behind it has to do, and how much cut or fill is involved.

Access is the one people underestimate. A wall a machine can reach costs a lot less to build than the same wall barrowed in by hand.

Ring and describe the site. We'll come out, look at it, and give you a real number in writing rather than a range you can't hold us to.

Concrete sleeper is the common choice for residential walls. Steel posts with concrete panels dropped between them — quick to build, long-lived, and available in a range of finishes.

Besser block is core-filled and steel-reinforced masonry. Stronger and more suited to taller or heavily loaded walls, but slower to build and more expensive.

Timber is the cheapest up front and the shortest-lived. It suits low garden walls where the wall isn't holding back much and replacing it later isn't a disaster.

Gabion — rock-filled wire baskets — drains itself, handles height and length, and suits sloping or acreage blocks. It's a lot of what we build.

The right answer depends on the height, what's sitting above the wall, and how long you want it to last. We'll tell you which one your site actually needs rather than which one we'd rather build.

A wall built from wire baskets filled with rock, stacked and tied together.

Because the rock is loose-packed, water runs straight through instead of building up behind it — the pressure that pushes conventional walls over has nowhere to collect. That makes them well suited to sloping blocks, creek lines, and anywhere a lot of water moves through the ground.

They also handle scale. A gabion wall can run taller and longer than most residential alternatives, and it settles into a bushland or acreage setting instead of standing out against it.

It's a lot of what we build, and on a big sloping block it's usually the right answer.

Because water is what knocks walls over.

When soil behind a wall gets saturated, the water itself pushes against the wall — and that pressure keeps building as long as the water has nowhere to go. It's a far bigger load than most people expect, and it's the single most common reason walls bulge, crack or fail.

A wall built with drainage aggregate and an ag line behind it lets water out before pressure builds. It's the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether the wall is still straight in fifteen years.

It depends, and it's worth getting clear before work starts rather than after.

It commonly comes down to who benefits from the wall, who did the cut or fill that made it necessary, and whether anything is recorded on the title or in the original development approval. Neighbouring owners sometimes share it and sometimes don't.

If your wall sits on or near a boundary, talk to your neighbour early and check your title documents. We'll flag it if it looks like a boundary issue, but who pays isn't something we can decide for you.

Usually one of three things: the ground doesn't fall anywhere useful, the soil is too compacted or too heavy for water to soak away, or there's something upstream — a neighbour's downpipe, a driveway, a new wall — sending more water your way than the yard was ever shaped to handle.

It matters because standing water kills turf, undermines paving, and puts load on retaining walls. Fixing the levels or putting drainage in is almost always cheaper than repeatedly replacing what the water is ruining.

An agricultural drain — a perforated pipe laid in a gravel trench, usually wrapped in geotextile fabric to stop it silting up.

Water in the soil finds the gravel, enters the pipe through the perforations, and gets carried away to somewhere it can safely discharge. It's the standard way of dealing with subsurface water behind retaining walls, under turf, and along the low side of a block.

Often, yes. A lot of drainage work is trenching along one line rather than lifting everything, and turf can usually be cut, set aside and relaid over the trench.

It depends on where the water is coming from and where it can legally go. We'll tell you at the site visit whether it's a targeted fix or whether the levels are the real problem.

Most of the work happens before a single roll goes down.

The existing surface gets cleared and the levels set so water runs where it should. The soil is prepared and, where it needs it, topsoil brought in — turf laid straight onto compacted clay will struggle no matter how good the grass is. Then it's laid tight, rolled, edged and watered in.

Turf is only as good as what's underneath it. The prep is most of the labour and all of the difference.

Hard landscaping is the built structure — paving, steps, retaining, edging, paths and decking.

Soft landscaping is the living part — soil, turf, garden beds and planting.

Most jobs are both, and the order matters. Hard elements go in first, because getting machinery and materials across finished turf and garden beds ruins them.

It varies with the season, the turf variety and how well it's watered in, so we'll give you a straight answer for your particular job rather than a number off a website.

The general shape: keep off it as much as you can while the roots take, keep the water up to it, and hold off mowing until it's properly knitted down.

The corridor from Morayfield up to Gympie — Moreton Bay, right through the Sunshine Coast, and the Gympie region.

If you're near the edge of that, call anyway. We'll tell you honestly whether the travel makes sense for the size of your job instead of quoting something we're not going to want to drive to.

Yes — itemised and fixed, after we've been out and looked at the site.

The quote states what's included, what isn't, and what could change the number. We'd rather have that conversation before the job than halfway through it.

Yes. Civil landscaping, bulk earthworks, site preparation and drainage for trade clients sit alongside the residential work.

Trade enquiries are best handled by phone rather than a form — call and we'll talk through scope, program and capacity.

Yes — $20 million public liability cover.

Certificates of currency are available on request, for trade clients and for anyone else who wants to see them.

Licensed and qualified — RTF 30403. ABN 83 367 732 541. $20 million public liability cover.

DCBM is short for Doug Casper's Building Maintenance. The business has been family run for more than twenty-five years, and we've been working the Sunshine Coast corridor for the past four.