HGS Engineering, PLLC (Texas Firm #21268) is a licensed engineering firm in Arlington. Its engineer inspects existing retaining walls across North Texas. A retaining wall inspection is an engineer walking the wall and writing down what is moving and why. Below you’ll find the five readings, the signs worth a call, and what Dallas-Fort Worth rain does behind a wall.
What Does a Retaining Wall Inspection Cover?
A visit comes down to two questions. Does the wall still hold the grade it was built for? And if it has shifted, what is pushing it? Five readings answer both. The engineer takes them in the same order every time, so a scary crack at one end never skips the drain at the other.
State highway departments inspect thousands of walls and publish how. The Wisconsin DOT manual tells its inspectors to check the vertical alignment of the wall with a plumb bob (WisDOT). These are highway walls, yet the soil behind a backyard wall pushes just as hard.
One limit from the same manual applies at a house. Only the front face, top and sides of a wall are normally inspected, and the inspector cannot see buried tie-backs or anchors. The manual puts the duty on the inspector to “discern from distress through the observable components”, so the notes on that face carry the report.
Which Signs Mean You Should Call an Engineer?
The Indiana DOT keeps checklists for each wall material. On the masonry sheet, four conditions carry the higher-likelihood mark: cracking, masonry displacement, bulging and separation. On the reinforced concrete sheet, only cracking and bulging do (INDOT). Rust staining, spalling, vegetation, freeze-thaw damage, leakage and erosion also appear on the lists, but unmarked.
The engineer applies that split to photos homeowners send in, and the sort is shown below.
Why Does Drainage Come Up in Every Wall Inspection?
Water behind a wall adds pressure the design usually did not count. The Wisconsin manual names the most common causes of rotational movement, the tipping that overturns a wall: “saturation of backfill due to clogged drains; embankment erosion along the front of the wall; and improper design.” Two of those three are about water.
On a block or poured wall, the engineer finds the weep holes or the drain outlet and sees whether they run after rain. A weep hole under mulch drains nothing. If a pipe dumps water at the footing, that water goes straight back into the soil. At the top, the engineer follows the grade and each downspout. Roof water that gets to the crest of a slope will run toward the wall.
What Does North Texas Rain Do to the Soil Behind a Wall?
Clay is common behind walls in this region, and it swells and shrinks with moisture. The foundation data hub prints the share of rated soil in seven counties that the USDA rates high or very high for shrink-swell, from 9.3 percent in Parker County to 74.5 percent in Collin County. Wet clay pushes harder than dry clay, which makes the swing in moisture the thing to watch.
The 1991-2020 monthly rain normals from NOAA for the six stations behind the retaining wall engineers list show the same pattern, charted below.
Spring matters most for soil that dried out over winter. April, May and June together bring 30.1 to 32.6 percent of a year’s rain at these six stations. Dallas Love Field sits at the low end of that range and Denton at the high end. At the Arlington station, closest to the firm’s office, those three months bring 30.4 percent of the year’s rain, while Mineral Wells to the west gets 32.0 percent. Three months out of twelve is a quarter of the calendar, so every station gets more than its even share of rain then.
One inspection date is only a snapshot, so a dated log helps: the rain, and what shifted afterward. Movement right after storms suggests saturated soil. Movement in dry weeks points elsewhere, which the engineer will want to hear when you call.
Who Is Allowed to Inspect and Sign for a Retaining Wall in Texas?
In Texas, the engineering opinion on a wall comes from a Professional Engineer licensed by the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. The Board’s guidance on when an engineer is required points to section 1001.003 of the Occupations Code, which defines the practice of engineering (TBPELS). Paragraph (b) of that section counts as engineering any service whose adequate performance “requires engineering education, training, and experience” in applying special knowledge of the mathematical, physical or engineering sciences. The same paragraph opens with “public or private service or creative work,” so the definition does not stop at government projects. The Board states this in its answer to whether a Texas licensed engineer is required. A guide to finding a qualified foundation inspector in Texas is coming.
A wall contractor will look at yours too, and you’ll get a proposal for work. When the wall is tall, holds a driveway or sits near the house, the engineer’s opinion comes before the contractor’s proposal. The rules that trigger a design requirement in the first place are in the post on code-compliant retaining wall design in Dallas-Fort Worth.
What Will You Have When the Visit Is Over?
A written report. It names the wall and the visit date, lists what the engineer measured, and separates active movement from cosmetic wear. The last page ends with one recommendation, and each possible one sends you somewhere different. Watching the wall gives you a short schedule of marks to re-measure and a date to look again. Fixing drainage gives you a short task list for the owner or a landscaper, with a second look afterward. Rebuilding means starting a new design.
Heath Salmon, PE, spent ten years in foundation repair, earned a Civil Engineering degree at the University of Texas at Arlington and held a Texas home inspection licence for four years before becoming an engineer.
The retaining walls service page explains how the work splits. Design is sealed for Texas and Oklahoma. The first answer below says where the firm visits. There’s no fixed rate, because the wall, the access and the purpose of the report all change the work. Email an address and two lines about the wall, and the firm will say whether it’s in range and quote it. The firm works by email only.
What Will a Report Not Tell You?
It will not price a repair. HGS does no repair work, so no bid sits inside the finding to steer it. It will not name a contractor either. The quotes are the owner’s to collect. And it will not predict a date of failure.
What Should You Do Before the Engineer Arrives?
Four jobs shorten the visit, and none needs more than a phone, a pencil and a rake.
- Rake mulch and leaves back from the base so the drain openings and the toe show.
- Photograph the wall from both ends and straight on, dating each photo.
- Note the year it was built, who built it if you know, and anything added above it since, like a driveway, fence or pool.
- Mark the tip of every crack with a pencil tick.
If a crack has grown past your tick by visit day, the wall moved after your photos, and the report says so. Email the photos and notes ahead of the visit, so the engineer arrives knowing which end of the wall to read first. Name each file for the end of the wall it shows, so a photo can be matched to the reading taken at that spot.
A wall on a property line may hold your yard while standing on their land, or it may hold theirs, and who owns it usually decides who pays for a fix. The report states the condition of the wall and does not settle who owns it. If you know which side of the line the wall stands on, say so when you write, and name the material too, because the checklists an engineer reads against are split by material. The wall’s rough height and material, sent when you write, matter too. A short garden wall and a tall one that holds a driveway are not read the same way, and the answer shapes how soon the engineer wants to visit.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a retaining wall inspector near me in the Dallas-Fort Worth area?
Yes, if the wall is within a drive of Arlington. Farther out the firm doesn’t visit.
How long does a retaining wall last before it needs inspection?
No calendar date sets it; a change on the wall does, and the three groups above say which cannot wait. Walls that hold up traffic or a structure get the earlier visit, and a wall that has already cracked gets it first.
Does a retaining wall inspection replace a permit review?
No. The permit office checks a wall against the adopted code and may ask for a sealed design or an engineer’s letter. The report covers a wall that’s already standing. It can go along with a repair permit request, though the review still happens.
Can I just fix the drainage myself?
An owner can clear a buried weep hole or point a downspout away from the wall. Adding drains behind a wall, regrading a slope or digging near the footing changes the loads. Digging waits for the engineer’s recommendation.
Where Do These Facts Come From?
- Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Structure Inspection Manual, Part 4, Chapter 4, Retaining Walls. Section 4.5 lists clogged drains among the causes of rotation. The manual governs highway walls, not residential ones.
- Indiana Department of Transportation, Check List for Retaining Structures. There is one sheet per wall material, and an asterisk marks a condition as the more likely one.
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, 1991-2020 U.S. Climate Normals. Monthly precipitation normals for six stations.
- TBPELS, Is a Texas Licensed Engineer Required?. The page says the statute defines the practice of engineering in section 1001.003.
- USDA NRCS Soil Data Access (SSURGO), county shrink-swell shares as printed on HGS Engineering’s foundation data hub, downloaded 16 October 2026.
- HGS Engineering’s own retaining walls service page and who-we-are page, read 19 October 2026.