Retaining wall calculator

Count block courses and pieces for a straight, level, rectangular retaining-wall face.

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Wall length

Exposed wall height

More inputs and assumptions

Effective block length

Course height

Extra buried courses

Waste allowance (%)

Answer

…

Count block courses and pieces for a straight, level, rectangular retaining-wall face.

More results

Precision and calculation record

Decimal places in numeric results and text downloads

Rounding changes displayed numbers, not the calculation. Text, fractions, matrices and CSV schedules keep their own formatting. Automatic keeps up to 12 significant digits, with money shown to cents where applicable.

Saved scenario

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Formula and assumptions

Use effective laid length and course height. Buried courses and waste are your choices. Caps, corners, setback, drainage, reinforcement, soil loads and engineering design are excluded. This is a quantity estimate only.

Automatic precision shows numbers to 12 significant digits. Thousands separators such as 1,000 are accepted; use a dot for decimals.

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Updated 2026-09-26

Using Retaining wall calculator

Count block courses and pieces for a straight, level, rectangular retaining-wall face.

Next: Concrete calculator

A worked example

Example inputs: wall length = 10, exposed wall height = 1, effective block length = 0.5, course height = 0.2, extra buried courses = 1, waste allowance (%) = 10. Blocks in a full rectangular face = 120.

Before you use the result

Example results for wall length

These examples use Exposed wall height: 1; Effective block length: 0.5; Course height: 0.2; Extra buried courses: 1; Waste allowance (%): 10. They are reference calculations, not recommended settings.

Wall length	Blocks in a full rectangular face
5	60
10	120
20	240

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