A leaning wall is tilting away from vertical as a single unit, pivoting from its base or footing rather than bulging in the middle, which usually points to a failing foundation, an undersized footing, or lost support behind a retaining wall.
Because a leaning wall moves as one piece instead of curving, the cause is almost always at the base: a footing that's cracked, undermined, or was never set below the frost line, or in the case of a freestanding wall or chimney, soil that's shifted or washed out from underneath it. A slight lean can sometimes be monitored, but a lean that's increasing, or that shows a visible gap opening at the base, needs to be addressed before it becomes a safety issue.
On a retaining wall, leaning is a classic sign the wall is losing its battle with the soil behind it, especially after a wet winter when freeze-thaw cycles load extra pressure onto a wall that didn't have enough batter or drainage built in to begin with. A chimney that's begun to lean away from the house is telling the same story about its own footing, just on a smaller scale. We check the footing, the batter, and what's happening behind or under the wall before deciding whether it can be corrected or needs to come down and be rebuilt right.
More masonry vocabulary from the glossary.
The services where this term comes up.
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