# About Batterline San Diego Retaining Walls > About Batterline San Diego Retaining Walls: the retaining wall work it offers across the county and the methods and standards behind it. See how a project runs. URL: https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/about/ What the company does, the standards the work follows, where it works and how a retaining wall project runs from the first call to the final inspection. Get an Estimate Last Updated: October 27, 2026 [Batterline San Diego Retaining Walls](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/) offers and manages retaining wall work across San Diego and San Diego County: repairing walls that lean, crack or weep, replacing walls that have failed, and building new walls where a slope, a driveway or a yard needs one. This page is about the work rather than the company’s story: what is offered, how decisions get made, and how to reach someone. ## What the work covers The work starts with walls that hold back soil. [Retaining wall repair](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/retaining-wall-repair/) handles a wall whose cause can be fixed in place; [replacement](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/retaining-wall-replacement/) rebuilds a failed section or a whole wall, support zone included, and [timber wall replacement](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/timber-retaining-wall-replacement/) swaps rotting ties for block, concrete or stone. [New retaining walls](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/retaining-wall-installation/) are planned from the soil, the slope and the load above them, in [segmental block](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/segmental-retaining-walls/), [reinforced concrete block](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/block-retaining-walls/), [poured concrete](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/concrete-retaining-walls/) or [stone and boulder](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/stone-and-boulder-retaining-walls/). [Drainage](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/retaining-wall-drainage/), [hillside walls](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/hillside-retaining-walls/), [driveway walls](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/driveway-retaining-walls/) and [slope repair](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/slope-repair/) round it out, along with freestanding [block walls](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/block-walls/) and [fences on top of retaining walls](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/fence-on-retaining-wall/). Some related work is not offered: yard-wide drainage systems unrelated to a wall, shoring with soldier piles or tiebacks for excavations, waterproofing of building foundations, and urgent after-hours visits. ## Standards and methods A retaining wall is a structure that holds soil and water, so the design questions come before the material. Three things decide most of it. The first is drainage: gravel behind the wall, a perforated pipe at its base and outlets that carry water out, because water trapped behind a wall adds pressure the wall may not be built to hold. The second is the load above, called surcharge: a driveway, a fence, a pool, a house footing or a slope steeper than 1.5:1 changes the design and, in the City of San Diego and the County, brings a permit at any height. The third is the wall’s height from the top of its footing, which is what the permit rules measure, not the face you see. Height alone never settles whether a wall needs an engineer. In the City of San Diego, the Development Services Department’s standard design covers grouted concrete block cantilever walls up to 6 feet with level backfill or backfill no steeper than 1.5:1, on soil without expansive clay or mapped hazards and with nothing loading the top. Walls outside it are designed by a California-licensed civil or structural engineer or an architect, with a soils report where the mapped geology calls for one. Segmental walls are built to their design with geogrid at the levels it specifies, which is why a taller segmental wall needs room to dig behind it. The [permit guide](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/guide/retaining-wall-permit-san-diego/) and the [engineering guide](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/guide/do-i-need-an-engineer-for-a-retaining-wall/) explain the thresholds in full. Repair, replacement and new work are kept separate on purpose. A crack sealed on the face of a wall that is rotating does not fix it; the cause behind the wall decides whether a repair can last or the support zone has to be rebuilt. ## Where the work happens The service area is San Diego and San Diego County, from the coast to the eastern hills. The [service areas page](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/service-areas/) lists the eighteen areas with their own page, including [La Jolla](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/service-areas/la-jolla/), [Poway](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/service-areas/poway/) and [Chula Vista](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/service-areas/chula-vista/), with each one’s permit office and the soil and slope facts that change a wall there. ## How a project runs It starts with a call or the [estimate form](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/contact/). The first site visit measures the wall’s length, its exposed height and its height from the top of the footing, identifies the wall type, notes any lean, bulge or cracks, checks drains, weep holes and irrigation, and looks at the load above the wall, the access for equipment and any old permits or plans. From that comes a written estimate that names the scope, the permit path and what is excluded. Permitted walls are inspected as they are built. For City standard walls and County walls, that means the footing, the block and steel before grout, the drainage before backfill, and a final inspection; engineered walls add any special inspections their plans call for. ## Pricing The site publishes typical San Diego-area price ranges rather than hiding them. The [cost guide](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/guide/retaining-wall-cost-san-diego/) explains what each range covers, and the [cost calculator](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/tools/retaining-wall-cost-estimator/) turns a wall’s type and size into a budget with engineering and permit fees on their own lines. The price for a specific wall comes from the site visit and the written estimate. ## How to reach a person Call the number at the top of any page, or send the [form](https://batterlinesandiegoretainingwalls.com/contact/) with what the wall is doing, its rough size, what sits above it and your ZIP code.