retaining wall for patio?

[theonlywayisup33]

We are on a hill and want to enlarge our back garden patio. One builder said we would need some sort of retaining wall which could be made of bricks or railway sleepers.
Another said to create drainage using a soak. I have no idea which is better or are they even necessary
Any advice on this appreciated.

We have a small retaining wall made from sleepers and then a small drain run made from aco drain which feeds into our soakway. Basically what both of your builders said

We have a french drain behind the retaining wall at the bottom. Essentially a they cut the garden back, then built a wall 15cm away from the garden then laid a perforated pipe into the trench, put some sort of membrane on it, then pea gravel, to aid drainage, then decorative stones on top. The french drain is piped to an actual drain under our patio that was laid at the same time. We did a kitchen extension that ate into our garden which was sloped.

We have foundation blocks for the wall which are very heavy and are designed to be below ground so are fine holding up the garden as they would usually be in a trench for the foundations. These blocks are then clad in red cedar to make it look pretty.

We already had foundations blocks as part of the build so I couldn't comment about cost. But you definitely want the water to drain away rather than sitting behind the wall.

Thank you @didireallysaythat. So you had both things done. We had one builder suggest one thing done - the drain. Then the other suggested the wall.

@EatTheCakeBarry Thanks. Do you find it makes a difference - like a before and after?

@theonlywayisup33 previously we had a very, very small "patio" area (a few paving slabs they had put down outside the french doors) which would flood due to the water coming down the sloped garden. The garden naturally is level at the back toward the middle then sloped down the the house for the last 1/3. It is about 60-70cm difference from the original patio to the flat part of the garden.

When we did the kitchen extension (3m deep) they cut the garden back ready to wall it later so we could see how much water seeped out of the soil in that wall. Due to it being 60-70cm we obviously needed a retaining wall and the french drain helps remove the water from the top part of the garden. So yes it does make a difference.

I meant to say I would definitely do the soak away, they would just dig a tench, fill it with pea gravel which would allow the water to go into that rather than onto the patio.