We tell you how to avoid mistakes when laying the foundation of a house.
1. Refusal of geological soil assessment
The foundation is the basis of any home, but despite this, it is on it that many try to save money. They save money from the very beginning when they refuse geological surveys. To build a house and not know what it is being installed on, in my opinion, is brave. Carrying out a full range of surveys for a private house costs less than 1% of the entire construction, but allows you to accurately determine the geological structure of the site. Want to save money? Ask your neighbors – owners of new buildings: perhaps they did similar work before construction. This will not remove the risk 100%, but understanding will appear.
2. Choosing the wrong foundation design
Another mistake that our specialists have encountered more than once is the customer’s attempt to save money on the foundation material itself, as well as the use of an inappropriate design. If a light wooden house can relatively painlessly survive experiments with the depth, design, and type of foundation, then mistakes with stone houses will result in considerable problems for you in the form of cracks, subsidence, or even collapses. So, mistake number two is choosing the wrong foundation design.
3. Lack of a future home project
And finally, the third mistake on the list, but not least, is carrying out construction work without a project. Yes, now many people buy ready-made house designs or entire house kits (for wooden buildings). However, the foundation design is individual in any case, and its implementation will help prevent a lot of mistakes. But its absence can nullify all efforts. What will the cost of completed geology and the correctly selected type of foundation be if the geological report data is not analyzed? Even the most reliable foundation structure can begin to crack before your eyes only because the calculations were not made and the reinforcement was performed incorrectly.
John Maxwell, General Director of building company
I very often encounter a problem when people come with an already formed solution for the design of the foundation. Usually these are tempting options in which the cost is kept to a minimum, and there are a lot of “pluses”: almost no excavation work is needed, and the consumption of materials is less, and the construction time is reduced. It’s just a pity that all these delights listed on the website of contractors or manufacturers have nothing to do with reality, and even more so with construction according to standards. I am sincerely happy when, during a conversation, a customer listens to all the arguments and makes the right decision – he carries out a full range of design work and builds a foundation under the strict supervision of professionals, and does not remain on the side of those people who blindly believe advertising headlines.
