Started out hating fiberglass reinforcing mesh, now I use it on every long wall

I was dead set against it for years, thought it was a gimmick for weekend warriors. Then I had a 40-foot retaining wall crack straight through the middle last spring and a structural engineer showed me the test results. Anyone else change their mind on a material they swore they'd never touch?

2 comments

2 Comments

benflores22h ago

My buddy Marcus put that mesh on his basement wall last summer after his first one crumbled in the freeze. He texted me a photo of the new wall with the mesh in it and said it felt like wrapping the whole thing in a seatbelt. Dude swears by it now, won't even talk about doing a wall without it.

king.aaron17h ago

Oh boy, that seatbelt comparison is spot on. I've been doing this kind of work for a while now and I can tell you that mesh really does bind everything together like a good pair of jeans. It stops the little cracks from turning into big ones, especially when the ground shifts or freezes. I've seen too many guys skip the mesh to save a few bucks and then they're patching chunks of concrete a year later. Your buddy Marcus learned the hard way, but he got there in the end. That's the kind of lesson that sticks with you once you've had a wall fall apart on you.