Do I need concrete piles?

[Sakeopete]

I am planning to have a large one story home built. My acreage has very hard ground and I'm assuming I will not need piles driven in for a single story house.  What method is used to determine if concrete piles need to be driven? Who does the testing?

 

Thanks

 

[wgdanson]

Jeez, From the title I thought this should be in the Medical forum.    LOL

Edited December 24, 2019 by wgdanson

[Crossy]

Where in Thailand are you located?

 

Are you going to go standard Thai post and beam construction or introduce some strange foreign practices (good luck there)?

 

A local contractor will tell you the type of foundation you require.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, Sakeopete said:

I am planning to have a large one story home built. My acreage has very hard ground and I'm assuming I will not need piles driven in for a single story house.  What method is used to determine if concrete piles need to be driven? Who does the testing?

The kind of foundation is dependent on the soil structure in the area that you are building, the local Or Bor Tor will be able to advise you on what is needed. Our soil bearing tests were done by a professor and his students from one of the near universities.
 

With the right subsoil you may well not need piles for a building with several story’s. 

 

With the wrong subsoil you will need piles for anything bigger than a pig shed.

 

 

 

 

[eyecatcher]

Be very very wary of paying thro the nose for unneccesary work that is deemed nec because the previous 20 proprties have fallen for it.

You know....just like the unnecessary land filling scenario.

 

Heres whats going to happen. You will be convinced piles are required, then they will ttell you to fill up 1m.

Then they will drive 30piles into that 1m of soft fill. So you have wasted thousands.

 

Piles are not the only answer to soft bearing ground, there is wide strip foundations, pads,a raft and even the old favourite ground beam which is 500mm deep or more to lift your ground floor away from that threat of flooding (which rarely if ever comes)

Having a knowledge of soil bearing soils myself, I had my team hand dig 1.5 square pits and 1.5m deep to check the strata.......infact identical to the JCB bucket scoops we do on every building site in uk.

My soil was great so those pits became pads off which to take stub columns which were tied to the ring beam.

The advice STWW gives above is good, go to see the local orbortor and ask to see geology and soil profiles of your area.

Under no circumstances take the word of local contractor unless he too can show you the geology.

[Kwasaki]

5 hours ago, Sakeopete said:

What method is used to determine if concrete piles need to be driven? Who does the testing?

No one knows how to test they only make out they can.

Single story building prefab concrete posts will do ya 1 or 2 metre into the ground depending what the ground is.

Then tie in with site fabricated beams or again you can use ready made prefab ones according to the requirements of you plan drawings. 

 

[thequietman]

5 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Jeez, From the title I thought this should be in the Medical forum.    LOL

Same here ............... I was thinkin he was an ex-marine and just wanted something harder than normal piles. I came on here to ask him to relax and accept normal piles.

[sometimewoodworker]

2 hours ago, Kwasaki said:

No one knows how to test they only make out they can.

 

That maybe your experience and opinion, specially if you have only seen incompetent people.

 

My experience is not the same. I had Standard penetration tests done that conform to the standard protocol. We needed 8 tons per square metre for the architects design, AFAIR we had closer to 30 tons in our fill that had compacted for about 8 years so could reduce the footing pad sizes. Also had no need to go through the fill to the original land level.
 

 

Edited December 24, 2019 by sometimewoodworker

[WayWokeWhiteGuy]

Look around at old buildings in the area that still look good...

[from the home of CC]

On 12/24/2019 at 3:19 PM, wgdanson said:

Jeez, From the title I thought this should be in the Medical forum.    LOL

yes, I thought maybe somebody put some cement powder in his prep H..

[tjo o tjim]

Buy a cheap soil penetrometer, and dig a small hole 30-50cm deep (or as deep as you can go if less, you are trying to get to undisturbed soil).  Measure the bearing strength at several points in the hole and average it out.  You then have a starting point.  

For a 2-story concrete house with 4x4m bays, I think you need at least 0.4kg/cm2 with standard footings, but more is better. (Have a real architect or structural engineer confirm.)

 

[Sakeopete]

Thanks for the replies. Happy Holidays