OT? Building Collapse

[Dean Hoffman]

I imagine most have seen the stories about it.

Another article stated that the building had been settling for decades.

[gfretwell]

It was built on reclaimed swamp land.

[rbowman]

Isn't everything in Florida slowly settling back into the swamp?

[gfretwell]

It depends on where you are but in Miami, yes. The whole city is lower than it was 100 years ago. New Orleans is the same way. It is what happens when you build on swamp land. Where I am is where the Calusa Indians lived a couple thousand years before Jesus and the land is pretty stable.

[Ralph Mowery]

It does not suprise me that Florida and other states have problems with the housing falling down.

About 60 years ago I remember being on vacation with my parents and there was some construction company pumping sand and shells out of the ocean to make more ocean property in Florid. This was a high dollar area for land and homes had to be some high dollar homes.

Even here in the middle of NC there are homes being built on property that is in areas that have been flooded in the past.

It should have not been allowed for places that have been flooded out like New Orleans and the Mississippi river area to have homes and businessed to build back.

[gfretwell]

That is probably why the monoslab footer and slab is so popular here. They just float on the sand. The block walls and poured tie beam on top is all tied together with lots of rebar so if you had a big enough crane you could pick up the whole house in one piece. One of my neighbors did exactly that except it was jacked up from underneath. They built a stem wall on a new foundation under it and lowered it back down ... above the FEMA flood plane. I agree about building in flood planes. New Orleans may be the worst large scale example but it goes on all over. In Florida they are pretty serious about getting people up in the air. You can't renovate or repair anything that costs more than 50% of the tax collector appraisal of the building, not including land or other improvements. That ends up making some pretty expensive homes "tear downs". I have a neighbor who tore down a $460k house before he even moved in and built a new one 4' higher