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Most Lowcountry bulkheads are timber or vinyl walls holding a yard out of a tidal creek. They fail quietly: a fastener rusts, a whaler rots, the mud pulls at the toe — and one spring you notice the fence line isn't straight anymore. Almost all of it is fixable if you move before the lean gets ambitious.
The lean. Hydrostatic pressure after heavy rain pushes from the land side; the tide pulls from the water side. When original tieback anchors corrode or were never adequate, the wall rotates. New helical anchors, properly tensioned, can pull a moderate lean back and hold it for decades.
Rotted whalers and pile tops. The horizontal timbers and pile tops live in the splash zone — the wet-dry cycle is the most corrosive environment on the wall. Sections can be sistered or replaced without touching sound sheeting below.
Fill loss through sheeting. Gaps between boards or panels below the waterline let the tide steal your yard a cup at a time. Filter fabric, joint sealing, and backfill replacement stop it.
Cap and walkway damage. Often cosmetic, sometimes the first visible symptom of movement underneath — worth a real look either way.
Alignment measured against fixed reference points. Probe of pile and whaler condition at the splash zone. Toe condition at low tide. Backfill inspection for voids. Anchor check where accessible. You get a written scope: what's failing, what's fine, what it costs to fix now, and what it costs if it waits.
If the wall is past saving, we'll say so plainly — see new construction for what replacement involves, and the permit guide because replacement almost always triggers OCRM review.