The foundation is the foundation of all buildings and structures. This is the name of the building structure, which takes on the entire load of the building. The strength, reliability and durability of the structure erected on it depend on a correctly calculated and correctly laid foundation. Therefore, its construction should be treated with complete seriousness and responsibility. This article addresses the topic of building a foundation with your own hands with step-by-step instructions.
Varieties of foundations used
To date, there are several varieties of foundations that differ in the method of laying and constructive solution. Among them are:
- columnar;
- tape;
- pile;
- floating;
- screw;
- finely buried.
Consider laying the foundation strip with your own hands.
The foundation is tape
This type of base is one of the most common. It is peculiar to him:
- significant weight;
- laborious work;
- high consumption of materials.
But its application is possible for the construction of heavy walls using bricks, cinder block, foam block. For overlapping concrete slabs, which significantly increase the total weight of the building.
The strip foundation is a reinforced concrete strip closed along the contour, along the entire perimeter of the building and the provided restorations. To build a foundation with your own hands, it is necessary, first of all, to correctly calculate it.
Calculation of the strip foundation
In order to make the correct calculation, you need to have some parameters. The total length of the tape (calculated by adding all the individual sections along the perimeter with the sections of the piers), width and height.
All these data should be indicated in the design drawn up for construction. If the construction is not complicated and a small house is being built from the foundation to the roof with your own hands, you can calculate everything yourself. It’s easy to find out the total length with a long tape measure. When choosing the height of the foundation, general recommendations should be taken into account: the depth should be 20-25 cm below the freezing point of the soil, but not more than 50-70 cm from the ground surface. The height above the soil level depends on the terrain, the design of the future structure and is chosen by the developer. The width of the foundation depends on the materials used to build the walls and should be wider than the thickness of the walls.
Foundation pit preparation
The next step when building the foundation with your own hands is to mark the future foundation pit on the ground. To do this, use a long cord, tape measure and a tool for measuring angles. Pegs around the perimeter are clogged, a stretched cord is attached to them. Digging the foundation can be done both using earthmoving equipment, and manually, with shovels. The second method is more time-consuming, will require more time and physical costs, but cheaper in finance. So the foundation pit delves, the bottom and walls are aligned manually.
Formwork
The crucial stage in the construction of the foundation of the strip with your own hands is the assembly of the formwork. Formwork is a structure for holding a solution in a certain form: cement and sand (concrete) until it solidifies completely. Various materials are used for its construction: wood (board, plywood, OSB), metal sheets, polymer, plastic.
The entire structure inside can be lined with a film or special greases so that the solution does not stick to the walls. It’s easier to remove structural elements. Inside the formwork, a frame of reinforcement is placed. It is designed to hold concrete inside. It is considered correct to make a frame by twisting wire with reinforcing elements. Welding is contraindicated. This is due to the expansion and decrease in volume during temperature changes. The welded structure can break, while the twisted one will “breathe” in the place of twisting.
Preparation and pouring solution
The next step in creating a foundation with your own hands is the preparation of a mortar (concrete mix). Concrete is a liquid mixture of sand, gravel, cement and water. To prepare it, you will need a concrete mixer with an electric drive. Kneading a solution in such volumes manually is simply unrealistic. Components in a ratio of 1: 3: 5 (cement, sand, gravel), i.e., 10 kg of cement take 30 kg of sand and 50 kg of gravel or gravel. Cement grade not lower than 200 is used. The number in the cement grade means withstand load per cm 2 . So, for example, using 300 grade cement, the foundation can withstand a load of 300 kg / cm 2 . Only fresh cement should be used for the solution, given that when stored for 1 month, it loses its strength by 10%, in two months, respectively, 20%.
All components are loaded into the concrete mixer without adding water and are thoroughly mixed in dry form until a homogeneous mass is obtained. After that, water is added and the composition is brought to the consistency of sour cream. The solution should not be very liquid and excessively thick. Ready concrete is poured into the formwork, filling its entire space. For high-quality pouring and preventing the formation of voids (otherwise, the completed foundation with your own hands will not have sufficient strength), a deep vibrator is used.
Foundation vibrator
In the process of preparing the concrete mixture and pouring the formwork, air bubbles are obtained. They can be from small sizes to large voids. Given the high density of the cement slurry, these bubbles cannot independently exit the mortar. To do this, there is a special device - a vibrator, the use of which helps to accelerate the process of shrinkage and compaction of concrete. Vibrators are produced by the industry powered by electricity and liquid fuel. The use of the device on gasoline is possible at facilities where there is no electricity. The use of such devices contributes not only to the removal of air from the solution, but also to an increase in the speed of concrete hardening due to the removal of excess moisture from its composition during utrushka. In order to make it easier in the future to lay the first row of walls horizontally, pouring is done by leveling the top of the foundation along a cord stretched horizontally.
Foundation flooded exposure
It should be noted that the foundation under the house with your own hands, as a rule, is carried out in the warm season. In dry and hot weather, the flooded solution is covered with rags and periodically, as it dries, watered. Humidification is necessary in order to prevent the rapid evaporation of moisture and the drying of the base of the house.
If necessary, pouring is allowed in the cold season, even in cold weather. But in this case, it is required to mention some features of the construction of the foundation with your own hands. In cold weather, the water in the concrete will freeze, and will not fulfill its functions. Cement should stand, grab and harden. In cold weather, you will have to apply foundation heating in any way (by wrapping, steam, building tents with heating by a stove, stove, firebox). This, of course, is a long and energy-consuming process, but, if necessary, a winter building, you can not do without it.
After pouring, the foundation must necessarily stand. The term depends on its depth. The greater the depth, the longer the concrete hardening time. It will take about a month. The poured base for the first month gives intensive shrinkage, then, during the year, its change also occurs, but to a lesser extent. These transformations cannot greatly affect the condition of the building.
Column foundation
Another variety is the columnar foundation. From the name it is clear that it is a group of concrete columns on which the entire building is based. The footprint of such a foundation is rather small in comparison with the tape or tile, respectively, less load is allowed on it. Such a foundation is well suited for the construction of houses that do not have a lot of weight. These are wooden fellings, frame houses, using sheets of plywood or OSB.
Despite the disadvantages, such a basis has several advantages. As you know, any type of foundation must rest on solid ground. This is his destiny. A situation may arise when there is loose soil on the surface, and solid layers are located at a certain depth. This is the reason for the use of columns. It is convenient to use the base in the form of them when constructing objects on an incline, when the use of a tape support is impractical.
Such a foundation cannot be used with a high level of groundwater. It is not possible to rely on layers of earth with high humidity with the help of columns. Wells drilled for the foundation will be filled with water, this is unacceptable. A house built on a columnar base cannot have basements. However, such foundations find their application.
The device of the column foundation
Do-it-yourself pillar foundation is troublesome, but quite real. First you need to figure out what kind of design it is. As mentioned above, this is a system of poles made of various materials arranged in a specific order. For laying the foundation with your own hands, a step-by-step instruction provides for the need for marking on the location of each of the pillars. The upper end of the support is called the head. The bottom of the building will be laid on it. The lower part is the base. It rests on the ground. Pillars are primarily placed around the perimeter of the base, its corners and at the intersection of the walls. Considering that the base of the house will be installed on the heads, all of them should rise to the same height. With uneven terrain, you can align them with each other using the cord and level. Pillar Shape:
- square;
- round;
- rectangular.
The most common are pillars with a round cross section. Under such designs, you can prepare wells even with the help of the simplest home-made hand drill. Speaking about the foundation with their own hands, the instruction provides for the material used for the manufacture of support pillars. These can be logs pre-impregnated with a composition that prevents the penetration of moisture into the wood. You can apply brick and cast concrete.
The height of the pillars above the ground is determined by the height to the first floor. Usually, this is up to 50 cm. Such a gap is needed for ventilation and prevents the occurrence of dampness in the wooden structures of the lower part of the structure. Indeed, on such a foundation, usually a wooden structure is built.
The best, undoubtedly, can be called a monolithic reinforced concrete option.
A frame of reinforcement is placed in a prepared well (following the example of a strip foundation), the formwork rises at the ground level and is poured with the prepared concrete solution. Shrink is done using a vibrator. Reinforced in this way, the monolithic pillar has high strength. Internal reinforcement with reinforcement cage gives resistance to temperature changes and other natural phenomena (rain, snow, wind).
Finally
In conclusion, I would like to note that the construction of the foundation with your own hands is available not only to professional builders, but also to ordinary developers. Here is a step-by-step instruction only for certain types of foundations, while there are many more, but the use of any of them is equally important for construction.