From: "Lil' Dave" 
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house sci.engr.civil alt.building.construction
Subject: Re: House Foundation Type Differences
Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 13:37:26 GMT

A few miles northwest of Wimberley.  No, I'm not the typical, uppity Houston
businessman retiree, the type that have flooded the area with their money,
increased land value beyond any reasonable expectation and their
corresponding tax values as well.
I know about the soil problems over in the Buda/Kyle area.  There is no clay
out where I'm at.  Forty years ago, this was considered semi-arid, almost
desert country.  The juniper type cedars came along.  They can and do grow
in solid rock.  They also are choking out the oaks as they soak up vast
amounts of ground water, and overcrowd the oaks as well by blocking
sunlight.  They create better soil conditions by actually creating soil from
rock, but at a heavy price to ground water and trees native to the area.
They love septic tanks as well.
"me@nospam.com"  wrote in message
news:1dYHd.41152$Ta2.27799@fe2.texas.rr.com...
> Strange way to build a foundation - I've never seen one like that in the
> Hill Country, although nothing surprises me any more.  You should be OK,
> unless you're on the Buda Cap formation (thin veneer of calich/limestone
> underlain by highly expansive clay, almost always misdiagnosed as
nonplastic
> until all the cracks show up in the home a year later), of which there is
a
> lot around.  Where exactly are you building?
>
> Jeff
>
>
> "Lil' Dave"  wrote in message
> news:74OHd.2171$rp1.1223@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> > "Mario"  wrote in message
> > news:1106220605.896468.37460@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > > Pier and Grade beam are pretty well explained by someone.
> > >
> > > Down here common practice is to use grade beams. Piers are only used
in
> > > situations where you require a heck of a lot more strength than is
> > > present at excavation depths or in situations where you definently
need
> > > to put your foundation on a layer of rock (for example in docks, large
> > > buildings or houses on sandy soils vulnerable to liquefaction).
> > >
> >
> > One exception I ran into is my home that is currently almost finished in
> TX
> > hill country.  The builder would only allow a home I picked out to be
> built
> > on piers or pilings, no exceptions, no matter the grade or the soil type
> > makeup.  The grade is slightly downslope at 3 degrees with a two foot
> > dropoff at the front of the house.  The soil is approximately 2 inches
to
> > nothing at the dropoff.  Beneath is a one to two foot layer of caliche
and
> > its corresponding rock type.  Beneath that is fractured rock and in some
> > cases solid rock near the dropoff.  None of which was going any place.
> >
> > I decreased the dropoff later by moving the soil from the septic tank
> > excavation to the front of the house.  Then backgraded to a more
desirable
> > slope to the front of the house.
> >
> > > Piers tend to be more expensive than the grade beam, since they
require
> > > more work to design, more supervision in the field, and more
> > > specialized equipment to build.
> >
> > The builder hired out a drilling machine normally seen for the
> installation
> > of utility poles.  They used a 24 inch auger bit.  The average footing
for
> > the piers was around 4 feet in depth.  The workers used 1X12s for the
> forms
> > for the actual piers.  The footings were tied to the piers with rebar
> during
> > the pours.  They also used rebar in the piers and footing themselves.
> They
> > used a transit twice to verify the location and height of each pier
before
> > pouring.  A strip of flashing type metal was inserted to the top of the
> pier
> > during the pour and was exposed around 10 inches.  This was used to tie
> the
> > pier to the sill.  A wider piece of flashing was placed flat on top of
> each
> > pier where the sill actully rode on the pier.
> >
> > >
> > > Post tensioned is probably that: some kind of grade beam with post
> > > tensioned foundation. Might be that the technology is specific to one
> > > company, but the builder doesn't wanna say "ABC Inc.'s post tensioned
> > > foundation technology" in his document.
> > >
> >
> >
>
>