Building Blox: Week 3 – Major foundation issue

What we did:

  • Discovered major issue with foundation positioning
  • Completed additional foundation trench
  • Foundation/substructure brickwork

[Yes, that’s me with the angle grinder below… #moneysavingtactics]

It was going well so far...

…but I had been warned we will have issues, but who knew it would be this elementary…

In conversation with my contractor, he told me I’d have to get used to dealing with “stupids”. Although many in the construction trade are extremely practical, showing initiative to come up with smart solutions, relatively unskilled roles also attract a less perceptive and proactive bunch. Unfortunately for me this these included the surveyors hired by my contractors to mark out the site back in week 1.

We still can’t figure out what went wrong, but the foundation trenches at each end were each out by approx. 15cm. This means the external walls would be hanging of the edges of the concrete foundation, so major issue, and best summed up by an architect friend’s response of what the actual ****, how can that even happen?!

This colossal screw up was only found after doing some basic checks of the ‘professionals’’ work. Performing sense checks had been drilled into me from consulting days and here highlighted how when doing something new and hiring experts to help you, you cannot become complacent and/or assume they are doing it correctly. If you cannot check yourself, ask a couple more people who should know and get them to answer all your questions. Lesson learnt.

The solution was quite simple,...

…but having to comply with Building Regulations and higher warranty standards, of course all needs to be robust and cross-checked. In short, the solution was to widen the foundations and shift the building footprint slightly. Using the AutoCAD software, I laid out the new plans and ran some calcs for the structural engineer to sign off on. Within a morning the contractors had dug out a new section, inserted steel reinforcement and filled it with concrete. Times like this is when you know if you’ve got a good team around you.

Continuing with this momentum, the brickies were called in to build up the substructure to ground level.

Brick setup

Brick setup

This is how a typical substructure looks – after the foundation trench is filled to a minimum depth with concrete (specified by the structural engineer), special engineering bricks are laid on top of the concrete to bring it up to the level where your building’s ground floor will be. In this case, we dug 1.5m down, filled with approx. 1m of concrete and made up the rest in brickwork – you can see a section drawing below.

Foundations section

In the week we were meant to be taking a break for the concrete to dry, we actually ended up overcoming our first major issue and…

...we ended up ahead of plan!

Next weekthe brickies get going.

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