3 ways to economize on a foundation: experience is the son of difficult mistakes
When constructing foundations, I met two radically different approaches:
- It would be cheaper for us. Where can you save money? Can I make a ribbon instead of a stove? Shallow foundation instead of tape ??
- The foundation is the foundation of the house! You cannot save on it! We dig a trench deeper and wider! The safety margin is our everything.
I'm not going to persuade anyone. Do as you see fit. I'll just show you a few points where you can not waste your money.
Not a word about tape narrowing and cantilever construction, bearing capacity calculations and design. Everything is much simpler.
If the foundation is on a slope
When there is no inventory formwork, it is knocked down in place from the boards. Often, pre-knocked down board shields are brought to the site. This method has one plus - there is no risk that the boards will be robbed. But there are also disadvantages.
When arranging the formwork in place, we begin to nail the boards to the uprights from the top of the ground (do not deepen the formwork into the ground). It's easier to install, and also savings on materials. Typically, boards are removed by 30%, and on strong slopes and 50% less.
Cover the gap between the ground and the board in the place of the build-up with turf. Outside the formwork, fill the slope with the excavated soil. It turns out hermetically sealed.
Carefully digging a trench
When digging a trench, we try to make the walls even and vertical. The bearing capacity is provided by the width of the base! When the excavators worked anyhow, due to local broadening, up to two cubic meters of more concrete than planned were spent on pouring.
Expansion of the foundation, by the way, can play a cruel joke. On heaving foundations, soil pressure increases along the lateral surface.
If corners or walls have collapsed heavily during work, a lot of concrete can also leave on them. Recovering geometry is easy. We install a piece (sheet) of fiberboard, OSB, flat slate in the trench and fill the bosom with soil. These materials are several times cheaper than wasted concrete.
Leave the vegetative layer
Here, each time you have to calculate the cost of several options for the foundation device.
Usually, the vegetation layer is first removed, then the tape is poured and the layout is again poured to the desired marks. Land harvesting by machinery is a plus. The downside is the increased material consumption of the formwork. Its height is increasing, and at the same time additional fortifications are required.
I will not talk about the fact that not everyone knows how to properly strengthen the high formwork and the pouring sometimes ends with concrete poured all over the site.
An alternative way of construction is to fill the foundation without removing the vegetation layer. So we save on formwork, and it becomes easier to expose it (soil becomes part of the formwork). It remains to select the ground from the inside of the foundation. Usually there are guys who do it cheap. Sometimes the cost of their work is comparable to the cost of a bulldozer, which removes soil before pouring.
That's all for me. Thanks for reading. If the article was helpful, subscribe to the channel and of course put your thumbs up 👍.