Foundations - why oh why ?

[Rick Dipper]

My DIY for the bank hoilday weekend was to dig the foundations in my barn conversion. Off to the hire shop for excavator and dumper, sort out a digging map with the architect, and deisel / soil disposal with the farmer and I am ready for action - if ony it were that simple.

First problem, the space inside the barn to manover the digger was very restricted - I learnt that digger driving is easy, but also very scarey, one wrong twitch of a finger and the wall fall down. A cry for help and a local farmer came to the reascue. He did a days work, I had plenty of fun with the machine, but on the easier jobs.

My question is this, why oh why did I did out piles and piles and piles of stuff, simply to put back in piles and piles and piles and piles of stuff, that has to be dug out somewhere else, carted accross the countryside in lorries and put into my hole ? OK I can understand the concrete bit, but taking out an old pebble beach (100m up a hill) to put back in "crusher run" simply mistifies me.

Rick

[Nick Brooks]

Regulations Regulations Regulations

My stone build house has foundations that consist of one stone block on it's side, one course below ground. It's still standing 130 years later despite obvious movement of the building.

Out new conservatory which has one 6ft wall has (at the insistence of the BCO) 1m deep foundations and like you, the ground was so hard and stony that it took days to dig out by hand as no access was available for a digger.

Nick Brooks

[Tony Bryer]

I was at a construction day a month or so back and someone from Roger Bullivant said that their piling systems were receiving increasing interest from housebuilders because they significantly reduced the amount of spoil to be carted away, which is now much more costly because of landfill tax. Of course it may just have been salesman's talk.

[Rick Dipper]

Exactly what I have just taken down, so that I can put it all back up again so it looks like it did in the first place, but some guy can sit and say its now strong enough to hold a roof .......

[Hugo Nebula]

On Thu, 06 May 2004 14:53:05 +0100, a particular chimpanzee named Nick Brooks randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Solicitors Solicitors Solicitors

The BCO won't get sued if your existing stone built house develops serious structural problems, whereas he might if your extension does.

[Brian G]

The soil in your area may contain contaminants such as sulphates which breaks concrete down over time. This has to be removed and an inert material put back in the hole to prevent this.

To ensure that under the nice solid looking topsoil there are no boggy bits to cause subsidence in your nice new foundations/floors.

To ensure that there is no form of root structure or decaying trees buried just under the surface that again could cause your walls to have that sagging feeling and a great strain on the bank balance to put right at a later date.

To ensure that there are no hidden "pot" mines under your foundations - back in the 1970's I was seconded to Stoke City council for a short while as a student C.o.W where they were building block of flats. They dug down about three feet to clear the top soil and uncovered a "small" hole that turned out to be old "pot" mine workings - a lot of concrete later and they were able to start building.

These are some of the main reasons and there are many more as to why this is done.

Brian