DIY Retaining Wall

DIY Retaining Wall is a Wake Forest engineering firm that designs retaining walls for homeowners who build their own and for contractors who need stamped plans. Owner Matthew Parrish is a licensed professional engineer who spent years designing walls for state transportation departments, railroads and towns before starting the company in 2021.

The firm turns a project’s site details into signed and sealed drawings and calculations, typically within seven days, so a wall can go to the permit office and then get built. Most of the work is segmental concrete block walls, and the small team works remotely on jobs in more than 20 states.

What to know

• Small block wall designs start at $750, and large block walls start at $850.
• A global stability analysis costs $650 per run and is done alongside the wall design.
• The firm does not do soil testing, so clients arrange that separately.
• Parrish wrote a step-by-step guidebook on segmental block retaining walls, sold on Amazon.
• Most communication happens by email, with phone calls scheduled in advance.