Building Pillars And Pool Before Filling Land

[silentnine]

Hi all.

here a strange question.. crazy as my dragon puts it. another stupid farang idea

building a house on a few rai in the village, land is going to be raised about 1.5m as its rice land,

so lots of soil to be delivered or maybe dug up from the other end of the plot to make a small lake/pond.

then you have to wait ages for the land to settle before sinking the pillars etc.

now my crazy thoughts is it viable to put the pillars 1st ? then fill the land around them. basicly giving the pillars a depth of what would be 3m.

i've had the same idea about the pool. it just seems silly to raise the land by 1.5m then after a few months dig holes when wahtver is to go there like pools & pillars could be

done 1st and the land put around. so build the walls and base of the pool also then fill the land around it. sounds to me a good idea as there are no constraints of how

big a hole was dug, no worrys about access to pipes as everything is being laid out before the land is raised .

all sounds a good idea to me .. but I'm NOT a builder so it could be a bad idea ?

it also made me think that may not need to wait months for settling if the house was going to be raised on pillars. sink pillars in hard ground. fill the land. start building as its raised above the new soft soil.

[alfieconn]

I'm no builder either but regarding the pool, doesn't the normal way of building a pool ie digging a hole and back filling, mean that the concrete structure is supported by the compacted dirt around it where as in your way the ground around the pool would not be compacted and thus weakened which perhaps you means you cannot fill with water for x amount of months, just a thought and i'm sure someone will tell us whats what.

Edited February 16, 2010 by alfieconn

[silentnine]

yes thatslogical . would that mean tho in newly filled land you;d have to wait even logner beofre tryign ot build a pool.

I'm no builder either but regarding the pool, doesn't the normal way of building a pool ie digging a hole and back filling, mean that the concrete structure is supported by the compacted dirt around it where as in your way the ground around the pool would not be compacted and thus weakened which perhaps you means you cannot fill with water for x amount of months, just a thought and i'm sure someone will tell us whats what.

[trogers]

Question - Why do you want spend money to raise the land by 1.5m?

[Crossy]

Question - Why do you want spend money to raise the land by 1.5m?

Same reason we did, flood prevention

I don't think the pool would work for the previously quoted reasons, but putting in the house pilings and long verticals may be ok.

The big issue will be your newly filled land settling away from the house and looking ugly, if it's going to be a pole-house anyway then less of an issue.

[trogers]

Question - Why do you want spend money to raise the land by 1.5m?

Same reason we did, flood prevention

I don't think the pool would work for the previously quoted reasons, but putting in the house pilings and long verticals may be ok.

The big issue will be your newly filled land settling away from the house and looking ugly, if it's going to be a pole-house anyway then less of an issue.

I would rather build a half basement by digging down another 1m, to achieve a floor to floor level of 2.5m between the half basement floor and the first floor. Money spent gives you additional floor area. Minimal digging is needed for the swimming pool unless you want water depth to be 6 feet or more. Soil dug can be backfilled around the structures later.

[silentnine]

Question - Why do you want spend money to raise the land by 1.5m?

the land is curently rice feilds. and surrounded by more rice tot he left and right. so if i do not raise it i will be swimming.

i'd love to have a basement but i think waterproofing it may be an issue

[Beardog]

You want to add all fill dirt first ABSOLUTELY! The reason you do this is so the fill will compact first before you build. If you do it ass backwards you will wind up with cavities in the back fill & the land will be washed away or weak at least to start with on the foundation. I argued this with an acquaintance & his structure (the pool & the house) is a living nightmare. He had to back fill twice & his pool is leaking due to sagging from lack of a good foundation. You can't pass any inspection in any western country & it is the worst way to build with countries(such as Thailand) that don't require an inspections. If I could have gotten a whacker & a sheepsfoot I would have compacted the soil to U.S. standards. Your structures will only be as strong as your foundation. Good thing we don't have any noticeable earthquakes Can you say Haiti.

Best advice in LOS I can give you (working in the building trades) is to do it the right way once. That way you only have the sub-par building problems to deal with. Unless you like shooting yourself in the foot.

[trogers]

You want to add all fill dirt first ABSOLUTELY! The reason you do this is so the fill will compact first before you build. If you do it ass backwards you will wind up with cavities in the back fill & the land will be washed away or weak at least to start with on the foundation. I argued this with an acquaintance & his structure (the pool & the house) is a living nightmare. He had to back fill twice & his pool is leaking due to sagging from lack of a good foundation. You can't pass any inspection in any western country & it is the worst way to build with countries(such as Thailand) that don't require an inspections. If I could have gotten a whacker & a sheepsfoot I would have compacted the soil to U.S. standards. Your structures will only be as strong as your foundation. Good thing we don't have any noticeable earthquakes Can you say Haiti.

Best advice in LOS I can give you (working in the building trades) is to do it the right way once. That way you only have the sub-par building problems to deal with. Unless you like shooting yourself in the foot.

The first 3-4m depth of an existing rice field will probably be soft wet clay with bearing capacity around 1300-1600kg/m2. You can sink down stepping in on one foot. Even without considering land fill, a concrete and brick house with steel roof structure will require the support of 6m long precast friction piles to minimize differential settlement of the support foundation.

If a 1.5m high land fill is introduced, you will need to wait out at least 3 years for the soil (both original and new layers) to consolidate, and thereafter place in the pile foundation.

To speed up getting the house built and to maximize cost/benefit, I suggest having a half basement and pool built on original soil, and then fill in the space between structures to the desired 1.5m height. The finished house will still be higher than the surrounding rice field. The only problem to solve is the waterproofing of the half basement.

[Beardog]

That sounds fair enough as long as the pilings are hitting solid earth & not on shaky ground to start with & are sunk down deep enough. The basement in Thailand sounds iffy. I wanted to original build one in our structure- Glad I didn't. It would have turned into an inside built in pool 2 years ago with the rain from China. I didn't catch the part of how much soil was there already. ^ meters down should hit mother earth.

[bankruatsteve]

Actually, it's easier to fill the dirt before you build. So, go ahead with that. THEN, don't worry about waiting years for compacting - that's silly. But, you will need to go down 2-3 meters with footing 3.5 to 4 m apart with about 1 sq.m x 10-14cm of reinforced (rebar) pad to then build up your reinforced columns. I don't know about swimming pools but it would seem like you could do that and then fill around it?