Ridgeline
(412) 555-0163 Free site visit

Licensed & insured · PA HIC #118402

Retaining walls, grading & drainage in Pittsburgh

Engineered hardscape on steep and difficult lots across Allegheny County. Drainage before decoration — and every wall over four feet stamped by a professional engineer.

  • Walls stamped by a PE
  • 19 years in the county
  • 5 year structural warranty
Call the crew(412) 555-0163

Get a free site visit

Ninety minutes on your property, no charge, and a straight answer before anyone talks about price.

No obligation. We never pass your details to anybody else.

4.9 from 96 homeowners
across Allegheny County

Booked.

We will call the number you gave to fix a time. If it is urgent — a wall that has moved since the last rain — ring (412) 555-0163 and say so.

430Walls built
19Years in Allegheny County
22 ftTallest wall to date
5 yrStructural warranty

What we do

Six things. All of them structural.

We do not mow, we do not plough and we do not take maintenance contracts. If it holds ground up or moves water away, it is ours.

A retaining wall part-built on an overcast day, its base course still open to show the drainage stone and perforated pipe behind the block

Retaining walls

Segmental block and natural stone, geogrid-reinforced into engineered backfill. Over four feet it is designed and stamped before anyone digs.

Get a price
A tracked excavator cutting a stepped bench into a steep clay slope in hard autumn sunlight, grade stakes and silt fence along the cut

Grading & excavation

Cut and fill, benching, rough and final grade on the slopes other crews turn down. Compaction tested, not guessed at.

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Clear water running out of a drain outfall into washed river stone at the foot of a finished block wall, mist still lifting off the ground

Drainage & water control

French drains, pipe to daylight, buried downspouts and outfalls you can actually find in ten years. The half of the job you never see.

Get a price
Bluestone flags being bedded into screeded sand just after rain, the laid stone dark and wet beside the screed rails

Patios & walkways

Bluestone, flagstone and paver on a proper base over a proper sub-grade, pitched so the water leaves rather than sits.

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A flight of quarried sandstone slab treads climbing a fern bank to an older stone house, autumn leaves lying across them

Steps & stone stairs

Quarried sandstone treads cut into the grade with cheek walls and a handrail, not bolted on to the front of it.

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A freshly benched clay hillside faced with green erosion-control blanket, a roll of geogrid at the toe and orange silt fence along the bottom

Slope stabilisation

Erosion control, geogrid, blanket and seed on banks that are already moving, plus the drainage that caused it in the first place.

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Before & after

Same ground. Different hill.

Every contractor shows you a finished patio. Almost none of them show you the hole it came out of, which is the part you are actually paying for. Drag any handle.

A bare graded back yard in Upper St. Clair with an excavator parked on the cut The same Upper St. Clair yard finished, with paving, a seat wall and boulder planting Week 1 Week 11

Upper St. Clair

Nine feet of fall across forty, a spring nobody had mapped, and a garage taking water every year. Two-tier segmental wall, French drain to daylight, terrace on top.

A rotting railroad-tie wall leaning outward behind a red brick split-level house, the clay bank below it washed out The same back yard rebuilt as a two-tier charcoal block wall with a sandstone stair, new lawn and a drain outfall to river stone Before After

Bethel Park

A railroad-tie wall twenty-two years old and leaning out four inches. Rebuilt in charcoal block with a sandstone stair and an outfall into washed river stone.

A bare clay bank beside a gravel driveway cut with deep erosion gullies, below a pale yellow clapboard house The same bank rebuilt as two sandstone-faced terraces planted with grasses and low shrubs, with a granite edge along the drive Before After

Robinson

Eight years of erosion beside the driveway, and silt on the road after every storm. Two sandstone terraces, a granite edge and planting that holds the face.

Recent work

Built into the hillside.

Every one of these was a slope before we started. The photographs are taken at least two winters after handover, because a wall that looks good in October tells you nothing.

Three terraces of block retaining wall below a white clapboard house, the planting on them now fully grown in
Three-tier cut and fillSewickley · 2022
A long block retaining wall running away beside a driveway in winter, bare trees behind it
210ft of segmental wallPeters Township · 2021
A long flight of stone steps running down a steep front lawn to the street in low evening sunlight
Stair run, 34 risersMt. Lebanon · 2023
A stone terrace carried on a boulder-faced retaining wall above a grass bank on a bright spring day
Terrace over a filled bankFox Chapel · 2023
An open retaining wall build: three courses of block laid level, a column of clean drainage stone behind them, a perforated pipe in filter fabric at the base and a geogrid layer folded back over compacted backfill

Why Ridgeline

Five things you can check before you sign.

None of these are a matter of opinion. Ask the next contractor the same five questions and see what happens.

  • Drainage is priced first, not last

    Pipe, stone and outfall are line one of the estimate. When a quote comes in twenty thousand under ours, this is almost always the difference.

  • We stamp what has to be stamped

    Over four feet, Pennsylvania wants an engineer. Plenty of firms build to three-foot-eleven and call it done. We will tell you which one you actually need.

  • One crew, no subcontractors

    The people who dig it are the people who build it and the people who come back. Nobody hands your site to a company you have never met.

  • Five year structural warranty

    In the contract, not in the sales conversation — movement, separation and failure of the drainage we installed.

  • We come back at two years

    Whether you call us or not. We walk the wall, check the outfall and clear it, and tell you if anything has moved.

A wall does not fail because of the block.It fails because of the water.

Ridgeline Landscape Construction · Carnegie, PA

How it runs

Four stages. You see the engineering first.

01

Site visit

We read the slope, the soil and where the water already goes. Ninety minutes on your property, free, and an honest answer on whether it needs engineering.

02

Engineering & permit

Anything over four feet gets a design stamped by a professional engineer. We prepare the packet and file it with the township ourselves.

03

Excavate & build

Cut, compacted base, drainage stone, pipe to daylight, block, geogrid, backfill. The half you never see is the half that decides whether it stands.

04

Grade, plant, test

Final grade, topsoil and planting — then we run water through the drainage with you standing there, before the machines leave.

Reviews

4.9 from 96 homeowners.

Three different houses, three different problems, three different years. Every review below is on Google under the business name.

A single course-built block retaining wall holding a level lawn behind a cream clapboard cape-cod house on an overcast morning

Two firms quoted the wall and neither mentioned drainage. Ridgeline opened with it and the number was higher because of it. Three winters on there is not a crack in it and the garage is dry for the first time since we bought the house.

Dan WhitakerUpper St. Clair · 4 months ago on Google
A large flagstone terrace with a sandstone seat wall and fire pit behind a dark brick colonial house, autumn colour in the tree line

They pulled the permit, dealt with the township and sent us the stamped drawing before anyone dug. I have built a house and never had a contractor make that part this painless.

Priya RamanathanFox Chapel · 7 months ago on Google
A curving sandstone-faced wall and stone steps along a wet driveway at a stone and shingle house after rain

Access was a nightmare — no gate wide enough for a machine. They hand-carried block down a hillside for two days rather than tell us it could not be done. Came in four days over and on the original number.

Marcus BellMt. Lebanon · 11 months ago on Google

Where we work

Allegheny County and one ring out.

One crew, one region. We do not take work we cannot reach with a machine before seven in the morning, because a wall goes wrong in the hours nobody is watching.

PittsburghMt. LebanonUpper St. Clair Bethel ParkPeters TownshipSewickley Fox ChapelCarnegieRobinson WexfordMoonShaler

Not listed? Call anyway — if it is inside forty minutes of Carnegie the answer is usually yes.

Houses stepping down a steep wooded hillside above a river valley in peak autumn colour

Questions we actually get

Straight answers.

What does a retaining wall cost?

Around $38 to $70 per square face foot in this market, depending on access, whether it needs engineering and what the drainage has to do. A typical two-tier residential wall runs $22,000 to $60,000. You get a per-line price before anything is committed.

Do I need a permit?

In most Allegheny County municipalities, yes, over four feet — and some want one over three. We check your township, prepare the packet and file it. It is not an extra line on the invoice.

Why do retaining walls fail?

Water, nearly every time. Saturated backfill weighs roughly twice what drained backfill weighs, and the wall was designed for the drained number. Almost every failure we are called to repair has no drainage stone and no pipe behind it.

How long does it take?

A straightforward wall is one to two weeks on site. Add two to six weeks ahead of that if it needs engineering and a permit. Anything with a terrace on top is usually eight to twelve weeks start to finish.

Can you work on a lot with no access?

Usually. We run a compact track loader that fits through a 36‑inch gate, and where nothing fits we have carried block by hand. It costs more, and we say so at the site visit rather than at invoice.

Do you repair somebody else’s wall?

Often, and we will tell you honestly whether it is repairable. A wall that has rotated at the base is rebuilt, not patched. A wall that is bulging because the drainage was never installed can sometimes be saved by fixing the water first.

What is actually guaranteed?

Five years on the structure — movement, separation, failure of the drainage we installed. Settling of planting beds and efflorescence on block are normal and are not defects; we explain which is which at handover rather than argue about it later.

Free site visit

Tell us what the hill is doing.

Ninety minutes on site, no charge, and a straight answer on whether it needs engineering before anybody talks about price.

Or just call(412) 555-0163
  • 1We call back the same working day and ask four questions about the slope, the water and the access.
  • 2We walk the property with you for about ninety minutes, free, and say whether it needs an engineer.
  • 3You get a written, per-line price with the drainage on the first line — not a single number at the bottom.

Monday to Friday, 6.30am–5pm · Saturday mornings, March to November · Ridgeline Landscape Construction LLC, Carnegie PA · PA HIC #118402

Book a site visit

We answer every request the same working day.

No obligation. We never pass your details to anybody else.

4.9 from 96 homeowners
across Allegheny County

Booked.

We will call the number you gave to fix a time. If it is urgent — a wall that has moved since the last rain — ring (412) 555-0163 and say so.