Serious Digging problem for new house

14 years ago

Hello everyone. I am new to this board and I have a serious question for everyone.

I am currently building my first house on a lot that is on a man made lake in cleveland ohio. This lot is in a neighborhood that is about 50 years old but this particular lot has never been built on because the house across the street bought it to preserve their view of the lake. Anyways, I went throught all the planning stages and got all of the permits and everything like that. Well, yesterday they started to dig. This house that I'm building has a walk out basement to it. When they started digging yesterday, towards the rear of the house, they ended up having to dig about 6 feet further then they wanted too just to find clay. It was all top soil above that. Does anyone know if this is a common problem? I guess the obvious solution could just be to put in an extremely large footer that goes from the clay all the way up to the bottom of the house. Has this happened to anyone before? Does anyone know of any other solutions and how much this might cost?

Thanks a lot in advance.

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Comments (7)

macv
14 years ago
Organic material in soil is not common but it often happens near bodies of water especially old swamps or where land has been filled like next to man made lakes. Unless you took samples before excavation, subsurface conditions are always an unkown. It's what contingency allowances are for.

You can lower the footings and foundation walls or fill the hole with compacted granular fill or possibly flowable fill from a local concrete mixing plant. Get a quote from the contractor for the alternatives that are feasible.
sierraeast
14 years ago
Might be worth a consult from a reputable, licensed soils engineer familiar with conditions in your area.
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macv
14 years ago
If you have reached clay, it's a foundation design problem.
worthy
14 years ago
I wonder why they kept digging to reach clay--as if reaching clay (and there are many kinds, some absolutely dangerous to build on)--was finding the magic kingdom.

Ditto comments above. Spend a few bucks and have a soil engineer take a look.

{{gwi:1516647}}
St. Jean-Vianney Que. Overnight slide of unstable Leda "quickclay" drops 40 homes
towards nearby river and takes 31 lives in 1971. The slide reached speeds of 25kmh.

Here is a link that might be useful: Soil: the other half of the foundation
macv
14 years ago
Determining the soil bearing capacity of the soil is something that would have been done whether organic material forced a deeper foundation or not. The OP only asked about the depth of the excavation. If the OP suspects the designer/builder is not capable of designing a proper foundation, that would be another matter and might involve hiring a geotechnical engineer. It could also be a waste of money.
worthy
14 years ago
It could also be a waste of money.

I suppose you could say that every time I've hired a soils engineer it was "a waste of money" as the soil had adequate bearing. Money well wasted.

I've seen enough guys building multi-million dollar houses who haven't a clue other than finishes and bargaining for the cheapest sub that I'm inclined to get a second opinion on the most important part of the house, as far as I'm concerned.
galore2112
14 years ago
I saw an example of how this can be solved in Dallas on a lot which is on an old, forgotten landfill (the whole area looks really nice - very wooded).
The soil is unstable for a depth of ~50ft where limestone bedrock starts. The solution was to drill and install piers down to bedrock with the slab supported by piers and not on soil.
Of course, this was engineered.

Does your building permit office not require an engineered foundation in any case?

I second the recommendation to get this done right by consulting a geotechnical engineer and a structural engineer. I did that for the foundation of my home and it wasn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things. I found it also quite interesting to learn how the soil is layered and where bedrock actually starts.

Serious Digging problem for new house

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macv

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