How To Check The Structural Stability Of Your Foundation And causes Of weak Foundations


Foundation is the most important part of the building, and needs adequate attention for you to be able to sleep in your house with your eyes closed.
For a built building especially after few years, you need to recheck and ascertain all is well. These are some of the things you check for;

1 Settlement- Every house do settle without exception especially when it is newly built, but the effect is more noticeable after a few years of completion. The severity of the settlement is based on a couple of factors, like how well the house was designed and built, attention to details and others. Settlement can be very noticeable in some houses when one side visually begins to settle, which will require urgent attention before the house finally collapse, the attention of a structural engineer is required here. Beams and other measures may have to be introduced on that foundation for the house to be saved.

2 Cracks- Cracks may also be noticeable in some building foundations, this may be caused by a lot of factors including;

i- settling which may be caused by loose soil and is noticeable when you start having horizontal cracks.

ii- Soil moisture around foundation can also cause cracks and eat deep into the foundation. Hence, ii is important to back-fill the surrounding wall of your building and protect it from flowing water, also water from the soil have to be channeled to drains quickly. Avoid as much as you can water percolating around the foundation of your building. Expansion of soil when wet will create pressure on the concrete.

iii- improper mixture and inadequate water during mixing of concrete can also cause cracks, when concrete begin to shrink due to curing after a while. When preparing your concrete make sure you mix the aggregates-cement, sand, water very well before pouring.

3 Water movement around the foundation as discussed in (2)

4 Type of foundation- You need to to know the right foundation for a particular building and soil type, anything lower than what is required may result in foundation problem, for instance introducing strip or pad foundation where you are supposed to have raft foundation may cause problem in the nearest future.

5 Professional Handling- If not for anything make sure a professional (Civil Engineer) supervise your foundation being the most important part of the building, but if you doubt the competencies of your builder, then you also have reason to be skeptical about your foundation.

6 Mix ratio of the concrete is very important and the professional recommendations must be followed.

7 Types of Soil- If the building is to be cited on a vegetation plant or on dumpsite and it was not properly cleared and back-filled with adequate soil, the probability of you having a weak foundation is high. So before you build on any dumpsite, debris and vegetations must be excavated and removed. Also every materials and debris used during construction of the building around the foundation must be removed to avoid being buried in the ground which may disintegrate and weaken your foundation.

8 Improper filling or Back-filling of the foundation when not given adequate attention will also affect the foundation. For some structures you’ll notice the surrounding soil sinking after few rainfall because the soil was not well compacted. Foundation requires hardcore and it must be put in place to avoid too much pressure on the foundation.

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