If you do not clear the foundation of snow

Many who build a house in stages leave the foundation to winter without walls and a roof. In winter, it is covered with a thick layer of snow:

This is good in winter. Snow works as insulation, which reduces the depth of freezing of the soil under the foundation and the degree of heaving of the soil decreases, and the load on the foundation decreases. But what happens in the spring, when the snow melts - few people think ...

The snow begins to melt and water accumulates under it, which freezes at night or on cold days. But since it has time to soak into the pores of the concrete, then it loads its structure or even destroys it, at least the surface layer. If the concrete was of low quality (or there was a lot of water in it), then this can lead to its scattering even in its volume. In the first years, you may not even see this process, but after a few years everything will manifest itself.

The concrete must be of high quality and waterproofed from such water saturation in the spring and autumn.

Any material has a characteristic as frost resistance. Measured in cycles. For example, for high-quality concrete and ceramic materials, this indicator can reach F150-200. This says that the material can withstand up to 200 freeze-thaw cycles. This is far from 200 years (winters). Now imagine that during the spring period of thawing and saturation of concrete with water during night frosts, there can be up to 60 cycles (until the snow melts). Those. in the spring, the surface layer of concrete will age by at least a third.

For this reason, I cleared the snow from the foundation and the blind area:

I have a slab-bowl foundation. It is poured into decorative permanent formwork. Melt water can collect inside. In February we had a thaw up to +9 degrees. and ice has accumulated on the foundation. I could not remove it that day - it's bad. But in autumn I treated the surface of the stove with a water repellent to reduce water absorption. And "ribs" - with waterproofing mastic. I coated it without a bituminous primer - and it almost peeled off. Temporary measure.

But the water will go away from melting ice. Between the bowls on the foundation there are holes (tubes) for water overflow and drainage outside the foundation. The ribs themselves were cast in order to raise aerated concrete from the surface of the foundation, to prevent getting wet. Brick is harder to lay, takes longer and less reliable. A brick plinth is the past century. Only used by lazy builders. I wrote about this and discussed it in the article: Why do basement brickwork on the foundation?

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Photos of the author (c)

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