Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Jan 23, 2010 5:05 pm Hi all The engineer has just gotten back to me with his plan for the house. Mostly his plan is about the foundation system. He has (on my request) used screw piles as a fast and cost effective solution on our patch of difficult land. I have contacted a company that does screw piles and they seem to think there will be a problem. The problem is that the more west and down you go on our block, the more you hit bedrock. He said that the screwpiles need around 2m of earth. He added that that can go through sand stone no problem but that they cannot just go into sand stone. That there must be some earth to hold them. We started talking then about options. He said that if we really are down to bed rock at that end, then it will be way cheaper to just bolt or concrete in some peirs down there. Sound good to me. Sound good in theory anyway, but to tell you truth I am a little lost with this. Seems they can do 'some' screw piles and from what I can gather they will be cheaper and quicker then other options up where the fill is deep, like digging a hole, adding metal, pouring in concrete etc. But then do the rest of them down where the fill is shallow or not existant 'some other way'. The screwpile people just do screw piles. Thing is I don't know know exactly how many screwpiles we can use. Where would they stop and the other system start. What goes in first? Who can I contact? Whlie I am owner building this, I never intended to do the all important piers and such. I'd much rather leave that to the experts. I have added the key parts of my soil report to give you a good understanding of the situation. http://www.users.on.net/~bradford/Images/Land/SoilTest/Report.jpg http://www.users.on.net/~bradford/Images/Land/SoilTest/Report2.jpg http://www.users.on.net/~bradford/Images/Land/SoilTest/Report3.jpg http://www.users.on.net/~bradford/Images/Land/SoilTest/Report4.jpg http://www.users.on.net/~bradford/Images/Land/SoilTest/Report5.jpg ( if you have trouble seeing the hole numbers on this last image, hole 1 was at the NE of the block, and hole 3 at the SW lower end of the block. How should I go about project managing and getting a quote for this part or the build? Can I really just say to the screw pile people 'come and do as many as you can' and then get someone else to finish the job. Sounds messy but doable I suppose. What do you think? Thanks all. our situation was a bit of a guinea pig in that structural work by the previous builder was defective and the house was almost completed, and our structural engineer… 1 4966 If what you describe is correct then the brick wall has been dry lined with villa board. That basically means that the villa board is glued to the brick wall with… 3 8310 How good is Simeon?! Always taking time to help others out! Wish we were building in NSW and could work together. Thanks for all that you do! 7 6562 |