Foundation Designs: Homeowners Beware!
Some FREE advice for that new Building you’re planning:
On any building project, all of the owner’s investment, the building itself as well
as everything in that building, is standing on the foundation. Don’t know about you,
but I have a pretty good idea the foundation is one of the most, if not the most
important element on the whole project. And yet, that is where many contractors,
design-
So, here’s the advice: I would strongly advise any Homeowner to be careful who they trust with the design of their foundations. I recommend once they received foundation design details from their Contractor, specifically where the site is located on dolomites, they have the design checked by an independent Professional Engineer or other Competent Person of their choice to see if the design will cater for those loads transmitted to the foundations in the [very] possible event of subsidence or a sinkhole forming. I say that because out there, there are two types of concrete rafts being built and paid for by Homeowners:
Type 1: Those that are built along some GENERAL guidelines, just for the sake of
getting the blessing of the NHBRC, the Council for Geo-
Type 2: Those that are designed and built to accommodate the specific project loads it is meant to support.
I have seen beautiful new homes that had to be demolished because the damage caused by subsidence was just too big to have it repaired economically, which would have not been the case if the foundations were properly designed to cater for the SPECIFIC requirements of the project.
Pieter Swanepoel Pr Tech Eng