A leaning wall, a slumping revetment, rock rolled from the toe, blocks shifted or missing, ground sinking behind it. We refill the void, reset the toe and rebuild the failed run with the filter and drainage it needs. Tell us which bay, the wall type, how many metres, and send photos at low tide.
Get a Quote →Seawalls hold back the land behind them from tidal action, boat wash and storm surge, and most failures start invisibly behind the wall face rather than on the water side. Port Stephens has a mix of exposed harbour frontage around Nelson Bay and Shoal Bay, sheltered marina and canal-style waterfront around Soldiers Point and Salamander Bay, and river-estuary conditions along the Myall River near Tea Gardens, Hawks Nest and Karuah — each with a different mix of wave energy, boat traffic and tidal range acting on the wall.
A proper repair starts with identifying how much backfill has already been lost behind the wall (often more than the visible damage suggests), then either repointing and patching sound sections or rebuilding failed sections with correct weep holes, filter fabric and backing drainage so the same scour problem doesn't just start again in a new spot.
Full or partial rebuilds of collapsed or badly failed sections, in rock revetment, precast concrete panel or block wall systems.
Open mortar joints and small gaps sealed before they let enough backfill wash out to threaten the whole wall.
Backfill voids behind the wall identified and refilled properly, rather than just patched at the visible face.
Structural assessment reports for council or Crown lands approval before repair or rebuild work goes ahead.
We look at a seawall at low tide, when we can see what it stands on: rock rolled out of the toe, a footing showing, sand gone from in front, a lean in the face, open joints. Water running out cloudy on the falling tide can mean the fines behind it are going too. A failed run comes out. We dig the washed material back to firm ground and set the new toe low enough that the next scour hole forms in front of it, not under it. Behind the new face goes a filter, fabric or graded stone, with weep holes through a solid wall, so it drains on every falling tide and keeps its sand. Backfill goes in layers, each one compacted, so the ground behind doesn't settle and drop later.
What changes the job here is where the wall sits. Port Stephens Council's 2024 Coastal Management Program (CMP) says most of its study area, which runs from Fern Bay to Yacaaba Headland and takes in the Port Stephens estuary, lies inside the Port Stephens–Great Lakes Marine Park. The one stretch it puts outside the park is the coast south of Birubi Point. NSW DPIRD Fisheries' permit rules for the park say any works that damage or interfere with habitat need a marine parks permit, and they name seawall construction specifically. Development in the park or beside it gets assessed under marine estate and planning law as well. On most of this coast the permit is part of the job, and we work out what a repair needs before anything goes on the foreshore.
The same CMP records how the foreshore is behaving. At Sandy Point and Conroy Park in Corlette, it puts the erosion down to the flood tide delta moving into the port, which has amplified the refraction of north-east swell, so a face there wants heavier armour rock than a sheltered wall. The first protective structures at Sandy Point went in during the late 1950s, and the revetments there are rock or geobags, so the walls there are old and mixed. At Shoal Bay, sand drifts west and the central to eastern part of the beach is gradually eroding, undermining stairs and accessways, so a toe there is set for a beach that is going down, not the one in front of us on the day.
The CMP also finds that private coastal protection and other works are contributing to key threats in the coastal zone, including encroachment on public land, and commits Council to a guideline and education program for private landholders covering engineering design, development controls and environmental approvals. A rebuilt toe that lands past your boundary onto public land, council or Crown, is that encroachment. So before we price a repair, we confirm where your boundary sits and which approvals apply.
Tell us what you need and where the property is.