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The house sits on a lake shoreline that was ancient forest until recent logging, cedars and firs, almost in the rainforest league of growth. There might be a mudflow deposit somewhere in the layers from the local volcano, but digging in the past for development in these forests has shown me three feet of pure decomposed trees before.
I don’t know the history of the building around this development, or whether someone was pulling a quick one with this house. I do know that there is quite a process to do anything that might affect the shoreline, and hence thought doing this by hand excavation might be in order. I guess making enough noise to get the neighbors interested wouldn’t be such a bad idea, though.
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Can anyone suggest methods that don't involve backhoes and shoring for retrofitting extra footprint to a foundation footing that sits about four or five feet above water table?
The idea is to add load capacity to the footing (piles, or maybe sistering extra footing to the existing on the inside?) Then jack and level the house. The soil is organic to the water. The second story section has a footing and foundation walls that are sinking and cracking, about three inches in twenty years. Am willing to sweat (or pay grunts) to do as much of the work by hand as possible. We will have to keep the impact on the yard and neighborhood as quiet as possible on this one...
Any thoughts or leads would be a help.
*Nathan, This is most definitely a situation for input from a local engineer.Don't worry about your neighbors and the noise of a backhoe, unless you're sitting on the only organic hill in the neighbourhood, they'll be joining you with backhoes of their own.How the hell did anyone approve building permits over organic soil like that? Are you over a old landfill dump of some kind?Don't walk, run to your local soil engineer and structural engineer and protect your investment.Gabe
*nathan,Just out of curiousity, what does "The soil is organic to the water" mean?Rich Beckman
*The house sits on a lake shoreline that was ancient forest until recent logging, cedars and firs, almost in the rainforest league of growth. There might be a mudflow deposit somewhere in the layers from the local volcano, but digging in the past for development in these forests has shown me three feet of pure decomposed trees before.I don't know the history of the building around this development, or whether someone was pulling a quick one with this house. I do know that there is quite a process to do anything that might affect the shoreline, and hence thought doing this by hand excavation might be in order. I guess making enough noise to get the neighbors interested wouldn't be such a bad idea, though.
*nathan,.. as you say.. if you have ((peat)) the basic choice is driving piles thru to bearing... or excavating and replacing the peat with compacted suitable material..there is not a spread footing that will support anything on top of peat...some of the auger type / poured concrete pile systems might be good..there are also some proprietary steel augers that are screwed into the ground by two-man boring machines... a series of these are driven by a site-determined plan .. and become the underpinning for grade beams...
*thanks
*Nathan,Check out FHB #104, September 1996, pg 92, "Fixing a House With a Bad Foundation".This article is about the helical piers that Mike mentioned. Looks like this might be your ticket to salvation on your project. If you don't have the article, repost and I'll copy the contact info for you.
*Nathan,Sounds like Mike and Ralph got it right. Try tis link for some info: http://www.abchance.com/underp_techman/undtechman_pg1.htmlHit their home page too. http://www.abchance.com/Jerry
*Thanks for the direction. Nathan clear.
*Don't forget a follow-up to this posting.It would be educational to bring closure to a lot of these questions with a posting of the methods used and the results.Gabe