Planning the construction of a house is an important and responsible work that requires certain skills. When creating a house project, it is necessary to take into account a number of factors that can affect the entire work process.
What should be considered first?
It is important to know that the bearing capacity of soils is the main characteristic indicating the degree of load that a unit of soil can withstand. As a rule, it is measured in t / m2 or kg / cm2. This indicator allows you to determine what properties the base footprint should have.
As a rule, three basic soil characteristics are determined that affect its bearing capacity. This is the saturation of the soil with moisture, its compaction and type.
The bearing capacity of soils decreases significantly with increasing humidity. Only the properties of medium-sized sands remain unchanged. Excess moisture can be indicated by a high level of groundwater. In such cases, it is not necessary to resort to the help of geologists, because this indicator can be determined independently. It is necessary to dig a pit 2 m deep with a shovel (or drill a well with an earth drill), this will be enough to determine the type of soil and its degree of moisture.
You can determine the type of soil by eye. Recognizing the sand is not difficult for anyone. Loam, on the other hand, has plasticity and contains up to 30% clay particles, sandy loam is a more brittle material and easily crumbles upon exerting the slightest pressure on the lump, but clay is the most plastic soil and turns into a cake when compressed. By the amount of water content in the dug pit, you can determine the moisture of the earth and the proximity of the location of groundwater.
Also, the bearing capacity includes indicators of soil density. However, this value cannot be called constant. Other layers that are higher exert pressure on the soil layer deep below the ground, therefore, when it is removed to the surface, its bulk density is much less. Thus, calculating the bearing capacity, the soil can be considered dense only if it is located at a depth of 0.8-1 m.
It should be noted that the corresponding studies are not always carried out, therefore, to simplify the calculations, it is assumed that the bearing capacity of soils is 2 kg / cm2.
However, in preparation for construction, the soil does not always correspond to those indicators that are needed to establish the foundation in accordance with the building design. Modern technologies have made it possible to influence the quality of the soil, so there are a number of technologies that are being taken to strengthen it.
Developers simply need to take measures that protect and strengthen the soil. First of all, protection is required to prevent wind, water and mechanical soil erosion.
To strengthen the soil, there are several most common technologies, for example, an increase in mechanical properties, which is carried out by introducing special elements into soil structures (called reinforcement). It is also possible to carry out chemical strengthening of soils, which is achieved by converting their composition through treatment with chemical reagents. The use of binders such as tar, bitumen, cement, organic and mineral waste also helps to strengthen the soil.
It is important to understand that after the construction of the house is completed, it may shrink, under the weight of the entire structure and from the subsidence of the foundation. Uneven loads often cause cracks, which subsequently leads to the destruction of the whole building. The far from always low bearing capacity of soils is the main reason that can lead to such consequences. However, in order to choose the right type of foundation, this value must be taken into account first.