Hello, I'm a newbie here. My builder has just built a retaining wall with oak railway sleepers and three 3m long 150mm x 150mm H profile RSJs hammered 1.7m into the ground next to a stream in my garden. The RSJs arrived painted in red oxide but he didn't paint them further. When I asked he said they'd last 50+ years in the ground. Before he orders any more RSJs for the rest of the wall I'm just wondering if his 50+ years is likely to be accurate? many thanks for any advice.
It is wonderfully vague and a statement like that should not be classed as 'accurate' - if they lasted 49 years you'd be relatively relaxed. I would have thought he's right in fairness and in any case, unless your builder is only 20, he'll have retired by the time they fail after 45 years!
Any metal in the ground or water will last a lot longer than if it was above ground in the air. The protective coating applied in the steel storage yard is designed to protect the steels in building and should last a 100 years. However, the weakest point is the part above ground. This is the point that could do with an extra coating of paint as it is a location where it is going to be fiddly to paint later on. What is the purpose of the wall is it flood defence or just a retaining wall ?
Thanks everyone. I guess I just wanted to be reassured that they weren't going to rust away within a stupidly short time. 20+ years would be fine. Just retaining wall sospan, I get the rest galvanised and paint the above ground bit of the existing three
The traditional way to build a retaining wall with sleepers is to lay them flat on a gravel bed and use rebar to pin them together and into the ground. You will have to be careful how you backfill it, the centre section will take all the load and at the moment it looks like a weak point with no bracing
He's backfilled with 75mm lumps of crushed concrete. The centre RSJ feels pretty solid, it was a major effort getting it 1.7m into the ground.
Looking at your photo,what's stopping errosion of ground at bottom of sleepers, if stream floods? I would have used gabion cages, far superior.
I would of put a coating of bitumen or simular on top of what looks like red oxide 150mm below and 150mm above ground . In the good old days they would of been blasted and coated with Coal tar epoxy or something that is simular today , has the RSJ been blasted and coated ! , if it has just been coated then there will be mill scale on it that will break down the coating on in no time .
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