Home Building Foundations

All new buildings require foundations but  there are a great many foundation designs to choose from. The secret is to select the best home building foundation at the cheapest cost.  If a home building foundation is too over engineered it will waste money.

Home extensions for example that are on stable high bearing capacity ground will only require a basic trench fill foundation and the Building Regulations usually accept a 1M deep foundation.  The foundations width is usually 600mm wide for an external cavity wall but this can be reduced if someone is prepared to calculate and prove that a lesser width of foundation will not exceed the estimated bearing pressure of the subsoil.

Engineered designed foundations are sometimes required for a home building and this is when the subsoil is unstable (clay) or of made up ground.  These home building foundations can range from manually installed pad and beam foundations to deep piled foundations of very high cost.

Some home owners are advised to obtain a soil test for the site before starting on site when suspicious ground conditions are suspected. Although this can be another high cost professional services element it can save thousands of pounds during the build to enable the foundations to be correctly sized and designed for the new home building works. 

NOTE - These are general discussion articles only.