How Soil Destroys Buildings
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- Okay this is the last video on the hazards of soil mechanics for a while :)
Expansive soils cause more property damage per year than earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Expansive soils are a slow-moving geologic phenomenon, which makes them not very news-worthy. However, they still cause a tremendous amount of damage to buildings and the public infrastructure we rely on every day.
USGS Map of Expansive Soils: ngmdb.usgs.gov...
Watch this video and the entire Practical Engineering catalog ad-free on Nebula: go.nebula.tv/p...
-Patreon: / practicalengineering
-Website: practical.engin...
Marxist Arrow by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Source: • Marxist Arrow - Twin M...
Tonic and Energy by Elexive is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Source: • Elexive - Tonic and En...
This video is sponsored by Brilliant.
I think it's time to build orbeez press to show their full destruction potential :D
Please don't or else Trump will think NK tested another nuke
Velcome tu ze hydrulic press chenel
Ultimate orbeez hydraulic press w/1000 degrees knife vs fidget spinners.
Please do Laurie that would be amazing I really think they could lift/crush a lot
press orbeez in hydraulic cylinder
I truly adore your content. I don't think I'll ever specialize in civil engineering, but that doesn't mean it's not cool. Please never stop making videos, they're just so good.
Truth
DIABEETUS!!!
@David You're wrong, no kind of engineering is better than the other. Besides, civil engineering is the oldest kind of engineering and the ancestor to the ones we have today :)
@David How can you say one engineering is better than other? Without Civil engineering there are no infrastructure for mechanical engineers to apply their machines like cars, airplanes etc. We can live without machines as our ancestors did but we can never live without Civil engineering structures.
“The wise man built his house on rock, but some civil engineer had to build a road to that guys house.”
I love the deconstruction of the meaning of that quote right there.
Nah, just dirt roads, all of them. no engineers necessary.
until no one can get to the house because of how horrendous the mud is....
@@InfernosReaper
Tamped Earth?
Truth rocks.
Trevor H That’s how my great-great-grandfather built the road to his house.
"I got a bag of... Instant viral video" lmao
It's the truth xD
I'm a civil engineer here in South-Africa and do consulting work for banks regarding insurance claims. Most of the cracks caused in the houses I inspect are as a result of poor workmanship (narrow foundations, improper joint detail). With most insurance claims where there are cracks in the walls I will ask the lab to do a test pit investigation to determine the size of the foundation and properties of the founding soil (Atterberg limits and grading). Various buildings I investigated are built on active soil (shrinks upon drying and heaves upon wetting). This poses a big problem for many house owners as insurance brokers do not cover for damage caused as a result of active soils. It is therefor important to know what you are building on and how to mitigate any future problems. Many property developers skip the process of doing material investigations. It is a cheap and important part of construction work and can save a ton of money and hassle in the future.
P.s. Thanks for the video, very well done. :P keep up the good work
In South Africa? That sucks...
Charl Ellis any tips for the public searching for a new home?
I can only give advise regarding the structural integrity and overall condition of the building, I'm not a property sales agent :P.
Shortly:
-Look at how well the building is maintained; any leaks in the roof? Fascia boards in good condition? Damage to wall paint as a result of moisture seepage (mostly in brick walls)?
-Look for cracks at the corners of doors and windows. If cracks are localised (say for instance only on the Southern side of a structure) it will probably be as a result of differential settlement (clay, collapsible soil, inadequate foundation). Don't be shunned away by hairline cracks. Those are easily fixed. If there are numerous cracks larger than 2 to 3 mm I would be worried. :)
Hope this helps. There are obviously a bunch of other things one can look at, but these are the major ones.
Charl Ellis hey thanks alot man. Will definitely look for the signs. You have a nice day
Charl Ellis
Do you have any regulations and standards for building foundations in South Africa? What about foundation slabs under the whole buildings instead of foundation walls - does it help? Do you have standards for ground freezing depths while building foundations?
This is one of the best educational channels on TH-cam. Your presentation is professional and your explanations are easy to understand. Your visuals and models are very well made. You deserve many more subs. That's what I think :)
You forgot to mention the self depreciating humor he throws in.
it's just sad to see him wearing a NASA shirt...
Autum 2007, in Germany the city of "Staufen" thought it was a good idea to to restore a historical building and go geothermic with it. An austrian company put seven heatprobes(?) in the ground down to a depth to -140m. Problem most buildings are hundresds of years old and most of them have no or just minor levels of foundations, somewhere below the city is a layer of plater/gypsum and with these holes a connection between groundwaterand this layer was made -> catastrophic for the city.
The layer contains anhydrite, anhydrite + H2O-> gypsum the volume expands the soil rises and the city literarily breaks appart over this (not just because of people pointing at the responsible parties).
2017 the ground was still rising, estimates point out the possibility of the ground rising about 2m in total, it was found, that the city as well as the boring company hadn't informed themselves about the geological structures beneath otherwise no one would have attemptet this in first place.
th-cam.com/video/PezGv4gPYdE/w-d-xo.html
(unfortunate only in German but the pictures of the devastation are of "good" quality)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staufen_im_Breisgau#Geothermal_drilling_controversy
it's apparently significant enough o have its own wikipedia section!
I've been there, it really is impressive.
Here is Tom Scott's video about it: th-cam.com/video/zOgle88sKro/w-d-xo.html
@@alveolate 1 page in the english Wikipedia or 1 line in the German one.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staufen_im_Breisgau#Geologie
Looks like that some cuties have self solving solution to seal lvl rising.
Best expansive-soil-based free energy device idea gets a shoutout in the next video...
Basic Newcomen type thing. Expansive soil raises a piston when wet, lowers when dry. Want middle of this thing to be on a stable foundation, other end free is to go up and down. I think I'm going to have to draw that out, but still, hopefully fairly clear. Of course, a couple of inches of reciprocal motion for every wet+dry cycle is going to be a very average low power output XD
Perhaps, but the soil in question can sometimes lose parts of its capability to absorbe water as it dries up.
So this could potentially end up as essentially non-renewable...
Wouldn't that essentially be solar-powered? Where the "energy" to expand again next time is put in by drying up the soil.
Oh, great, the challenge has been posed and now the ideas are starting to form.
I already have the week off. I'm going to end up going in too deep.
Dykam yup, just as the rain that falls on it is brought over there by evaporating water and blowing it over there by wind
I am an inspector of civil infrastructure and deal with geotechnical technicians daily (Alabama). I observe soil/stone compaction testing all the time, and this is the first I have heard about expansive soils. Very informative. Thanks for the video!
love it!
(off to buy some orbeez)
This Old Tony - fun to see big fish supporting small fish.
Now go finish the cart.
I'm studying Mechanical Engineering currently and it's people like you that make me want to continue my studies even though it seems very arduous and time consuming at the moment. Your channel makes me see the potential of engineering. Thanks!
And this is why I was surprised that geology isn’t required for a undergrad in architecture.
It's like how a lot of engineering classes dont require you to source the parts for the item you designed.
Wow, seriously 😳
already there hired geologist
Nice job. This is one of the best pop-sci videos I've seen on youtube. The material was fresh and the pacing was excellent.
Thanks for the video! In Colorado we have plenty of expansive soils. In residential construction most soils engineers that I see choose remove a portion of the expansive soils and replace with select fill. Select fill is usually just better dirt but sometimes includes a stabilizing layer of rock or fabric. Grading is always used in conjunction with drain systems around foundations to prevent water from ever touching the expansive or potentially expansive soils. Fun!
Next on the wife's shopping list, "Dirt from outside the lawn, expandable dinosaurs, Orbies, and 20lb dumb bell." ... Yup, another day of experimenting.
Y.Rich uu
I work in a district lab for roadway infrastructure and u did a great job explaining what alot of people dont understand and automatically blame the designers and contractors for failing roads and structures.. and some other major tests we do on soils are testing the P.I of the material, moisture density relationships to determine the optimum moisture, dry and wet density. Atterberg tests and many more.
your videos are all great, love it when i see one in my subscription feed
But you don't make videos about dirt in your garage, you make videos in your garage about dirt. Yours is the best channel ever, cheers!
Hmm, here in the Netherlands, we scoop away the top layer of bout 1 meter, pound large poles into the ground down to "stand" on the layer of sand below the top surface of clay and other stuff, those poles then get their tops removed to expose the ironwork and then a "frame" of concrete is made incorporating all those poles (bout 8-15 per house) filling the gaps with a small layer of sand. On top of that frame the house is build... The depth those poles have to cover can be between 10 meter up to 23 meter. It makes for a very rigid structure that prevents such issues.
With good reason, even before gas extraction large parts of the dutch polders have shrunk because they are now dryer than before. Even now the NAP is still a moving target.
de betonnen frames zoals wij doen? sommige, maar zeer zeker niet in de USA. Daar leggen ze een betonnen plaat neer en noemen het klaar.
That's also how we deal with it in Texas. Slab on pilings. And during the dry season you water your foundations to prevent soil shrinkage. The real problem is roads. They build roads using over 10 inches of concrete that's reinforced with rebar and they still start to come apart after 10 years.
The problem is the road isn't as heavy as a house, and it's spread over such large areas it's doomed to get fukt. We had a slip on our road and when they finally reconstructed it, it was steeper than before. The road was nearly unusable before and was all cracked. It was a cul de sac so you basically had to use that shitty road to get up the hill to go back down.
Dirt is stronger than people give it credit for.
DataStorm momenteel les over grond. Op kaart is te zien dat in nederland idd. Heel veel dezelfde grond te zien is met de bovenste 5-20 meter slechte grond waar moeilijk op te funderen is tov de volgende laag die op 20-500m onder de het maaiveld ligt.
In belgie daarintegen, daar is op elke meter een grote kans op andere grondsoort die andere eigenschappen heeft. Niet alleen
Vertikaal maar ook horizontaal. Momenteel een project bezig met vloeropp van 5x30m en we hebben horizontaal 6 verschillende grondsoorten. Wat berekeningen wat moeilijk maken
It’s actually crazy how well buildings withstand movement. They’ve been doing construction on the pipes of my home town for years now. I came home one day and there was a whole small apartment building that moved about a hundred feet back from its original location so they could do construction. They just put a new foundation down and moved the whole building. I thought I was tripping, but apparently they can do that 😂
Apology accepted. In Australia We use AS1289.7.1.1 to test the shrink/swell of the soil
*andy g* ok
(I don't know what that means)
I remember doing it in college. Fuckin' Mike tried to spike our samples with sand.
D Mack the internet is an amazing thing. Gotta love search engines
I
You're EXPANSIVE range of jokes really CRACKS me up and really takes the PRESSURE off such a intensive topic please kill me
Phil: "That's a lotta damage!"
Grady: "A tremendous amount of damage"
Your channel is extremely good at giving quite dense information in a digestible way. Love the vibes here, getting smarter and enjoying it!
Your recent video on the condo collapse has lit a fire of interest within me. I started going around my home with a flashlight, camera, and a level to document all of the cracks and signs of deformation that I've been aware of for a while; but never had a cause to attribute to. It's been a curiosity to me why the living room floor's south edge curves downward dramatically, why the front door (also on the south face) is hard to open because the top of the door and frame are squishing together. Why there are long cracks in the west face foundation that extend from the floor to the ceiling (of the basement).
I don't have the sophisticated equipment or knowledge, yet, to be certain, but now I've begun researching differential settlement, and funny enough, it led me back to you! Unfortunately, Tacoma rests in that uncertain yellow zone on the soil map you used in this video, so I've got to dig deeper; so to speak.
This rabbit hole has me questioning whether i ought to move from mechanical engineering and register for the civil engineering program. A tough choice indeed.
Thank you for all of your detailed and informative videos! You've certainly had an impact on my life!
Me, not an engineer, watching very interesting expandable dirt.
Someone: what are you watching that is so interesting?
Me: well it's complicated...
"What's so interesting?"
"I'm watching dirt grow!"
I love what you added to that parable
This explains SO much. The first house in my neighborhood has shifting driveway and sidewalk panels, and on the sides of the driveway, the dirt is lower down. Also, sometimes a lizard that has scales like a snake lives under there. But it’s not a snake, it has arms.
I had not realized you're from San Antonio! when I started watching this video I was all "jeez sounds like my house." lo and behold 😁
As an architect, I had a teacher who said the Pisa Tower was located in such a place - with hydrophilic soil, and that "they" carefully control the soil humidity to keep it at the ideal tilting.
He said a very specific name for the soil at the time. I remember looking it up online and never found anything. At the time, I dismissed it as a ducktale.
But here it is! And it's just about any clay! Duh!
Hello there, I am not an engineer, but I have just found out about your channel and I must say I love it. The way you explain makes it easy for non specialists like me. Congratulations for your work and thank you for sharing your know-how in a fun and clear way. This is why the internet is the best invention ever. Cheers, from Central Brazil.
This explains a lot of stuff I've experienced - Thanks!
Oh, and Go Spurs Go!
I work in concrete construction on the front range of Colorado and you would be surprised by how many foundations are built on void or on a full under slab drain system. Lots of sump pumps as well in basements. Good vid brother.
I tried explaining to some of my clients in South Carolina about this. This video gives great insight so I will save it for another discussion meeting with them so they see how clay soils work
I want "You gotta have dirt underneath your concrete" on a t-shirt
i know alot of these videos are old but they are incredibly informative and interesting, would love to see more you make great content keep it up!
In your video about “why foundations are needed”, you briefly talked about water washing away soil. This video takes about the swell factor, but how else can water affect the soil under a foundation.
In my situation, we bought an older home like yourself. The neighbourhood that I live in, used to be farm land with areas of muskeg close by as well. Interestingly, when a new school was built 2km away from our house, construction was shutdown because a pocket of methane gas was discovered and had to be safely removed.
The soil underneath the driveway settled after 20+ years, causing the driveway’s concrete to sink lower the our home’s garage foundation. Instead of adding more or better soil and replacing the concrete, it was “mudjacked” to raise it back to the same level. Every year after, the driveway would rise a bit over winter and then drop back down over the rest of the year. A fact you stated about the power of freezing water. Those are the joys of living in Canada ☺️ However, recent events out of my control caused flooding, digging and poor drainage in the area next to the driveway. Some of the soil directly underneath the driveway was disturbed because some of it was removed. This occurred right before winter and large amounts of snow accumulated in this same area right next to the driveway. Last year was the first year that our driveway did not heave up over winter; instead it continued to sink more and started to move horizontally away from the house’s foundation. When the snow melted large pools developed because the water wasn’t able to drain properly towards the street’s storm drain system. Now even rain is not draining properly because the grade is poor.
So I’m wondering if you have time to explain a few things…
#1. Are foundations affected by the improper water drainage and disrupting the soil that supports the concrete underneath? Could the flooding and poor drainage be the cause for the concrete moving? In your opinion, what is the most important thing to do first to rectify this situation.
#2. What exactly is Mudjacking, and is it affected by the soil underneath (for example: high clay context), extreme temperature ranges (for example: -30°C to +30°C), large amounts of water and/or droughts?
#3. What exactly is“Muskeg”, and are there any specific considerations when building; what issues affect homes that are built in areas that have this type of areas nearby. For anyone who is considering building a new home, are there are any major things to consider.
#4. Does previous farm land or areas with muskeg have any affect on drainage, ground swelling or sinking?
I know this is a lot to think about. There really isn’t a lot of available engineering information for Canadians living in this type of landscape. Your one video talked about the worker in BC that got sucked into the ground. Would a type of soil like muskeg be a contributing factor in this types of event?
Thanks again for the videos, I’m learning a lot of great info. I’ve even repainted the inside/outside of my pool frame to prevent more rust from developing.
This hapens in my city (šilute,Lithuania) all the time . Specaly in old rusdian buldings
4:23 The timelapse takes 1 picture every 60 seconds, the seconds and hundredths are constant on the watch. Neat stuff.
Julius Conservicus III I think it’s every 30 seconds, the seconds oscillate between 42 and 12 on every frame.
Thanks for this great illustration. My house (on clay soil) goes up and down with the weather causing doors and gates to go way out of alignment just like this. We have had 2 weeks of -30 weather here in Saskatchewan and everything has just shifted again. I understand the soil getting wet and dry in the summer, but the ground has been frozen for months. How did my garden fence shift 3 inches when everything has been below -20degC for weeks? Is the moisture able to move out of the soil even in Arctic conditions?
Thanks for the great channel
I think the ground a few feet below wont be freezing. If the soil is permeable to that deep, the water in those lower levels of soil will continue to drain. Most of the big rivers and streams continue to get water, so Im pretty sure its water from soil.
Im not an engineer and dont know this for sure.
I just got this recommended to me today, and the first thing I see is either a Jackson Pollock or a copy of one/similar "style" on the wall and I'm torn between being sad or angry about it.
the solution is simple: flying structures.
Aha! Someone know's what's up.
Simple Airship base is all one needs.
The problem is Hydrogen is out because it can’t pass code; fire hazard and all, and helium being a rare Noble gas with finite reserves would be to expensive and not sustainable😜
@@entropicgirl8648 Big steel balls pumped to near vacuum is the way.
Suspended structures
why don't we put the structures in space?
I work in a soil laboratory, i'm studying expansive soils and how they can cause damage to road pavements. I loved your video. Greetings from Brazil
Mid-way thru 2020. So glad I found a channel that is interesting, informative and REAL.
1:00 shapePOP
Xabier G. so satisfying
Xabier G. I very much missed it watching the video. Thanks for pointing out that unexpected bit of humour. ;-)
I was about to make exactly that comment 😁
I really enjoyed the way you have laid this out in layman's terms. I find your calm and composted demeanor very easy to listen to and learn from. Thank you!
As a landscaper I found out about this a few years ago when we had a pretty long drought here in Iowa. I was seeing lots of movement in our patios we built from the shrinking soils and causing the pavers to pull apart. It was kind of strange to have to tell them to water your patios. Also 20-30 water/sewer line trenches start to show from sinking and people wanting them fixed. many foundations were also be pushed by many inches after the soil was saturated again. It created many many problems.
Thanks for the interesting video.
That's not a barbell, its a dumbbell @ 5:11
Whoops!
Medokai who you calling dum?
It's first time I know the expansion soil can cause so much problem, thanks sharing and hope can get more relative information
3:40 "ooo Brownies!"
Southern Arizona has real problems with soil movement. Part of why, for about the past 20 years, home slabs are post-tensioned, to make sure there isn't differential movement.
That was a pretty cool video to explain a simple but not necessarily easy to convey concept most people would never directly see.
"expansive soil?" More like *RIPPED SOIL*
Thanks for doing these videos in an easy to understand and quick way.
I'm a home inspector. I just want to add that diagonal drywall cracks coming off the tops of window and door frames are very common and do not typically indicate an issue with expansive soils. 99% of the time they're just from normal building settling. They can be reduced by making sure that the jack and king studs at a header are shimmed to eliminate any gaps prior to installation of drywall.
Steam, water hammers, and orbies... I've found another favorite channel. So sharp and well done.
Yep I can confirm I live in the great plains and we do have this.
We've had quite a few water mains break when I lived in the city particularly during dry seasons.
Yup…!!! He’s spot on right.
We once lived in Denver, CO. We had this expanding soil. I was repairing cracked walls all the the time - especially in the Spring after the Winter snowfall was gone.
We had one 4’ crack in one basement wall. Friends of ours had big big cracks in their basement walls - some large enough I could see the soil on the outside, or daylight. Not good!!!
Bruh you live in San Antonio? Me too!
In states with expansive soil, most buildings are built with a gravel bed (ranging from inches to feet thick) under the cement to act as a ball bearing intermediary layer to help prevent the cement from cracking
when buying a house, ask if the foundation is made of post tensioned concrete. smart buyers know that is a huge value adder...
I've watched a few of your videos, finally subbed. You do a fine job of explaining and illustrating complex concepts for the layman.
Knowing what's under your home is important, but in addition to what nature put there it is important to know what people put there. I'm talking about what is generally known as "fill". This could be everything from overburden removed from somewhere else (say a road project miles away) or just material from the site that's been cut and filled to make it level. Or, it could be something worse. In these cases it's unlikely that material has been compacted evenly if at all - and differential settlement happens.
I remember working on a development which straddled what had been an old ravine. Back in the 1910's a fire ravaged the city's Chinatown, and all the debris had been dumped into it. About halfway through the project it was stopped while all the "garbage" was excavated and replaced with proper material compacted to requirements. It was an expensive fix (though the local bottle collectors had a field day). Another case comes to mind of people in a 1950's subdivision in a suburb of Vancouver, BC. The front porch and part of the house started falling off. Turned out the developer had used trash for fill. There was a picture of what the front of the house was built on - the decaying carcass of a car. In both instances expansive soils were not an issue or even present in the areas - it was junk fill. That issue is much harder to predict as it may not show up on soils maps, and is just a ticking bomb.
Do you think this, expansive soils, had something to do with today’s building collapse in south Florida?
That is exactly what I was thinking when I saw this pop up in my feed. Perhaps one day he will do a show on what happened in Florida and is it something that could have been prevented.
There’s an interview with a superintendent of that building from the 90s and he talks about the sump pumps being constantly overwhelmed by salt water in the basement. I’m guessing the rebar just corroded away.
I believe there is never one single factor and it almost always combines with human error if not human nature in avoiding fixing things by pretending the problem isnt there until it arises
This was top notch informative on a simple and very practical shown level. Impressive examples
I remember in my year 2 soil mechanic we had a lab similar to what you did but yours is so much cooler.
"Don't Tell my wife! Just kidding, she knows who she married!"
My poor fiance is in the same boat as your wife!
Comparing the expanding clay map to maps of the western interior seaway gives some interesting insight on why the soil is the way it is.
these videos have been a life savior on this 8 1/2 hour road trip
3:42 “Don’t tell my wife, just she know who she married” HAHAHAHAHAH
My wife is from Texas and she told me as a kid they would need to water around their foundation - slab so the soil would not dry out to much. I never knew what that meant, thanks
Grady, your videos outperform every one of your competitors in content and entertainment value. Bravo!
Neat video, though I'd note two little things: Expansive clay and loose soil around it can cause a lot more damage than just the clay. During a washout, that combo can crack a house like an egg. Also, there is another technique used to counter it: soil irrigation regulating equipment. Hydrometers and other sensors tell a comp where to pump or drain water.
I am in the same exact soil complex. Expansive clay. Here is Heiden-Ferris complex also some Houston Black pockets. Plenty of building structure failures around here due to the shifting effect. Very deep cracks in drought weather. Many road beds become messed up over time . Sodium Hydroxide was used in effort to stabilize the soil under which a highway was being built on.
There are reasons for soil definitions in the IRC and state codes. They use frost depth to mitigate the issues of expansion and contraction.
Interestingly this is recommended to me after I began researching the Surfside collapse. This soil issue along with the salt water increasing the porousness of the concrete causing the steel rebar inside to rust, corrode, and expand, and eventually fail.
Hey Grady, this was a fantastic video. Explanation along with visual display of soil expansion was terrific. Always wondered why these cracks above my door frames and windows appeared, now I know. Appreciate you making these education videos.
In the UK we always dig through the clay onto rock and then pour a concrete foundation at least 10” thick to sit your outer house (sometimes inner too) walls on. Many of the Victorian houses throughout Britain have subsidence issues as the house foundations only went down about a foot or two foot, at most.
Great video. Always fun to find a TH-camr from my hometown. Keep the videos coming.
Here is SW Fla i see a lot of damage over time from our instable soil. When they first built the Interstate here about 1975 the road dept badly misjudged the soil under the concrete. It had to all be replaced within ten years.
A building on my college campus had 33% abandoned and sealed off @ year 11 from completions do to structure failure, then another 1/3 @ year 15 (after 3 attempts - and expensive - remediation). Year 20 the whole structure was abandoned, condemned, and demolished later in year 22...
Clicked because I have the same watch from the video. Stayed because practical engineering is great.
Avoiding expansive soils is actually possible where I live sort of as an intense version of replacing the soil. The upper layers of soil are highly expansive (with little prior loading), but somewhat soon give way to less expansive soils. Build or excavate all the way through, and it is possible to avoid too much reliance on the expansive soil.
again, learned something new! never thought about this.. impressive experiment with the orbeez.. thanks Grady!
Great video - you broke down an important topic that is easy to understand.
Good video. About 30 years ago when I lived in an apartment. The first 6 months, it would tilt to the right and next 6 months it would tilt to the left. Very small movement, but I can see the cracks on the wall. I patch it and it would crack in another location. I lived there 2 years and I knew pretty quick there is soil movement, or weak foundation.
My Dad is a civil engineer and he's always saying that they soak an area for days before laying down concrete (airstrip, road, foundation, driveway, etc) because the soil will compress when it gets wet. Once an area is stripped and graded, and all that new soil is exposed, and you have to completely compress it before building on top of it. There should be a few examples of sinking sidewalks or patios around the house in rainy parts of the country. In fact, there is at least one entrepreneur in my area that will pump a light material under your sagging sidewalks to lift them back up. Sure beats having to remove it with a sledgehammer and rebuild it.
Wow, never knew about this problem with soil. Another great video.
I learnt about soil creeping...i believe this is it, the best representation/video i have seen so far. Thanks a lot!!
fyi, you make really nice videos and models. i really enjoy that you talk like a normal person contrary to 90% of youtube.
That was awesome :) I was especially impressed by the power of expansion under pressure. Oh and my grandmother's house had cracks just like those and I always wondered why!
In the Netherlands we drive piles down through the unstable ground untill we hit stable ground like sand. On top of those piles we make a concrete slab.
This option wasn't considered in the video but works great in many parts of Europe.
That orbeez demo was really impressive
Most informative. I have identical issues with my home right now, and am grateful that you explained the issue so well. Thank you for your research and presentation!
Structures on expansive soils are most often built as a floating table, on piers. Piers extend below the frost line for solid support and cardboard boxes are laid in between them to support concrete until it cures. Then the heaving will only crush the boxes because the slab and stucture is supported by the piers and not the soil at the surface.
I'm a builder, I deal with this all the time. If you build a footing and foundation designed for the soil conditions you should be fine, however, so many builders cut corners or inspectors/engineers are unaware of the conditions. If you are building a house or addition have the soil tested and consider overbuilding the footing and/or the foundation. Perhaps a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars will save you a lot in the long run.
Thanks...great video...
A correction about the pressure above the balls...The balls do not feel this weight that are placed on them...They fell just a fragment of that force...
There’s two types of houses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area: those that have had foundation repair and those that need it.
Love your videos. Think you might have mentioned another common, effective solution to soil issues around buildings - eaves. Cheers.
in the netherlands we use a method called hijen. basicly ramming steel rods up to 50 meters deep and place the house on those for stability.
Wow, I love maps and from this video my main take away is that soil maps are a thing. I'm fascinated, as I'm also an avid gardener. Amazing! Thanks! I'm off to buy some :D