Barnstone Retaining Wall a facade over brick?

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soparklion11

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My home's driveway is bordered by original mortared barnstone walls from the 1940s... I want to extend the wall 4' on one end to 2' on the other end, ~10 feet in length. When I dug out the edge of the existing wall, I was surprised to find that wall was built as a stone face stting ontop of and in front of a brick support wall. The stone wall has a few 'zippers' that have opened but it is otherwise stable and retains a 1:10 ratio. The original section is 6' on one end to 3' on the other and runs ~20'.

I bought some barnstones that are are mostly 10-18" long, 4-6" high and 6-8" deep. I will mortar the wall to match the existing wall. I had planned to just use barnstone and alternate the stones using the long face and then the short face to bury half of the stones into the wall length-wise. I was building on a ~6" base of #2B limestone with half a row of stones below level. Planning for ~6" of gravel backfill behind the wall. I'm in Pennsylvania with heavy clay soil... it doesn't move and the existing area was more excavated than backfilled.

Questions:
Should I stack this on the limestone base that I mention, or should I pour a concrete footer?
Should I construct the wall as a facade over a rebar reinforced block wall? This seems to be overkill.
 
How deep is the footing on the old section?
 
Chances are the one or two cracks you mentioned are what was needed in the last 70 years to allow frost to move it if it wanted. The rest is staying together and moving as a unit. It could also be they put enough drainage material below it and your soil is such there just isn’t much heaving there.


I think I would extend the wall building it as close to how the original was done. It is hard to argue with success. If it was all new construction then it would be a different story.
 

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