A segmental retaining wall is built from precast concrete blocks stacked dry, without mortar, relying on the blocks' interlocking shape, weight, and built-in batter, often paired with geogrid, to hold back soil.
The blocks in a segmental wall are manufactured with a lip or pin system that locks each course to the one below it and sets a consistent batter automatically as the wall rises, without a mason having to eyeball the lean course by course. That consistency is what makes segmental walls predictable to engineer: past a certain height, the design calls for horizontal layers of geogrid tied into compacted backfill behind the wall, extending the effective base of the wall back into the hillside instead of relying on block weight alone to hold the line.
Segmental block holds up well to Southwest Virginia winters because the blocks themselves don't absorb and hold water the way some natural stone can, but the base still has to be right or none of that matters. We set the base course on compacted, well-draining material below where frost movement will disturb it, because a wall that's plumb and tight in July can shift if the ground underneath it heaves in January, and a shifted base course throws off every course stacked on top of it, block or veneer, all the way to the top.
More masonry vocabulary from the glossary.
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