Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Nov 21, 2011 10:48 am Hi I'm not sure where to post this - here or the landscaping or concreting forum. I will post in the landscaping forum as well just in case. We have just started to build a new house and on our original plans the land was cut and filled by the builder and then the concrete slab was to be laid. The builder discovered that the land had been filled and the usual piers they use to lay the slab on would not be sufficient. So...they have installed a raft slab insted with a concrete 'trench' running all the way around the edge of the slab and the slab laid on top of this. My question is.... When we had our landscape plan done for council submission our landscape architect put in retaining walls around the sides and back of the house (to form planter boxes) and with the regular piers the soil under the house where it had been filled could 'slip' out from under the house eventually so the retaining walls were put around the house to prevent this. Now that we have a raft slap the soil under the house is effectively all contained within the concrete 'trenches' that go around the whole house (under the ground - with the slab laid on top). Are retaining walls still needed in this case? Does this make sense? I'm not sure if the whole idea of retaining walls is valid any longer? Thanks to anyone who has followed all this. Chill Thanks for the insights, that makes perfect sense, and yeah, I will be leaning on the experience of the excavator operator entirely. 6 16153 4 11220 2 7538 |