Replacing the wooden sleepers in a garden

If you are using wooden sleepers in your garden as a retaining wall over time they will need replacing as even if they are treated with preservative the wood will rot and become unstable. Getting new sleepers can be expensive so look out for ones in reclamation yards or online on auction sites.

Planning out how many upright posts you need, and the length of the sleepers will need to be done to make sure that you have the necessary materials remembering that you may need some quick setting concrete to fix the uprights in place securely.

Once you have the new sleepers you will need to remove the old ones which can be a tricky job as the soil they are retaining can fall down. It is a good idea to replace a section at a time to prevent this happening. If you want to reduce the size of the retained section you will need to dig it back and remove the excess soil. Putting a layer of polythene between the soil and the sleepers will help to prevent rotting in the future.

Painting the sleepers with a good quality wood preservative on each side should help them to last for years to come.