foundations are something i know little about, any advise?

i’m going to be building in sandy soil, and will be using a foot print of 36 inches square, on 10 foot centers, on a 40×20 home. i understand the weight is based on the living weight on each pier, but is there a calculator to be used on sandy soil

i would have to drill down 70 to 100 feet to hit bedrock and that is a little out of my ability to do and produce a solid pillar of strength.

any assistance would be appreciated. i called the building inspector for the county and he was “out for coffee” and has been everytime i have called so it is getting difficult to make a guestiment on what i need to do

stats

36 squared, x 6 thick, with a 24 inch pyramid pier at the base rising up to a 12X12 column to the house frame, estimated concrete >4 CF

thanks in advance

Answer by Tom-SJ
You should be able to hire a licensed general contractor or architect to design this foundation for you. Maybe 4-6 hours of consultation.

“Sandy” soil is not a very precise term. Unless your building department already has accurate geotechnical maps which cover your building site, you will need a qualified designer to assess the load bearing qualities of your sandy soil. It may maybe be as low as 500 or 1000 lbs per square foot – or higher, if there is sandstone or a mixture of larger rocks. A low load bearing capacity will require a larger foundation. Your contractor should visit the building site.

After he or she knows the load bearing capacity, then your contractor can estimate the “dead” and “live” loads for your 20 x 40 building. Dead loads are simply the weight of the building materials on a per square foot basis. Live loads include concentrated loads such as appliances, furniture, bathtubs full of water, etc. They also include wind loads in your area (loads carried by the roof down the walls), and earthquake loads, if required. Adding the dead and live loads, per square foot, and understanding how the building transfers weight along the outside walls, plus to any floor joists, will determine how much weight will be carried by each pillar. From that, your contractor can properly “size” the foundation along the perimeter and interior footings.

Designing a stable foundation for a building of this size is not really a DIY project.
Excellent luck.

Answer by TOM W
6″ thick column pads seem rather thin to me. Regardless, I’m going to agree with the first answer. There are a lot of considerations. Building codes are one, where the frost line is (the bottom of the footing has to go below it, or the foundation will heave) is another, seismic zone may or may not be, what kind of floor/walls/roof, etc. varies across the country.

I would at least call a community contractor that does concrete/excavation work for homes. He won’t be qualified to design a foundation, but he will know that 127 additional houses similar to yours, in similar soils, have footings that are x wide, y deep, z thick, etc., and reinforced with this and that.

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Myloi 1 – seen through the trees


Image by electropod
Coming back from my Kefalari cave and Ellinikon pyramid excursion by a slightly different route, I snaked across a level crossing over the narrow gauge railway and headed towards Nafplio along the Ionian coast. As soon as I hit the coast road, I was greeted with this sight through the trees.

I’m mainly talking about the Ring Toss, the one where you have to hit a wiffle ball off the board and into a bucket or box, the one where you have to shoot the 3 cups in a pyramid shape ( I tried this 4 times and only got two off! ) and the Milk Jugs, where you have to throw a ball in a huge one. I know the odds are against you mostly all of the time because the wiffle balls are really light and bouncy but any advice or tricks would be greatly appreciated because I’m determined to get the giant stuffed animal

Answer by OneStepTango
The ring in the Ring Toss is too small for most of the pegs or whatever you have to toss it over. Some of the Milk Jugs are weighted down to prevent them from life able to tip over or go far. Same with the cups, or the cups are sometimes glued. Additional games are rigged as well.

As I’ve pointed out, they are rigged to make it harder to win than they make it seem that it should be, but not so that you can never win. Mostly it is so that the cheaper prizes will be simpler to get, while the more expensive ones are hard to get. Every so often the booth attendant will alter the rigging to allow someone to win something more expensive or not as cheap in order to keep the rubes interested.

Anyone who doesn’t know about carnies deserves to be taken. I suggest that if you are going to play the games you do so just to have fun and nothing else.

Answer by chri5742
They are most certainly not rigged.

I have really won an acoustic guitar by throwing a dart in the star.

The one where you have to shoot 3 cups, taking out 2 is skill, the last one is luck whether it falls off or not, if you can’t get the first 2 off you have no chance of getting all 3 off.

The one with the milk jug, exceptionally hard. I have only gotten 1 out of 5 before and won a huge inflatable ball. What I did was meant for the edge of it and let it flush in, the hole is only a small bit larger than the ball.

The ring toss game, i suggest you save you money, out of 1000 rings i spent my whole life, i haven’t gotten a single one in. I have the exact same coke bottles and they fit exactly on the bottle, so it is all luck if you want to play that game.

The simplest is darts, if you can get bulls eye all the time, you can get all the bears you like. Excellent luck

Answer by Sam Edward
yah
you have to be one with machine
try life aggresive at first but then cool down take it simple comfort the machine and when it least expects it om nom nom nom

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