Expansive Soil's Effects on Your Foundation | RMG Engineers - Geotechnical Engineering in Denver, Co

Jerry's a residential contractor from another area of the country just coming off a nightmare project but in a way he's glad it happened because he learned all about Colorado's biggest underground threat to building foundations expansive clay is a condition that was created over a million years ago and the unique ways Rocky Mountain group responds to make this threat two foundations a thing of the past so what is expansive clay imagine a dry sponge it's hard as a brick and it's tough now imagine building a house on it good idea not ever for several reasons because if it rains a little on one side of the sponge the sponge inflates changes shape and pushes the house around and if the whole sponge gets wet parts of the house lift up several inches as it dries it shrinks in many places causing the house to move even more and Jerry learned on his recent nightmare project that this is happening in many areas throughout Colorado's Front Range a condition that has been in the making for over a million years that means that most foundations don't stand a chance when built directly on the expansive clay in this region but that's when jerry discovered the Rocky Mountain Group the best group Jerry's ever found that will offer a full suite of robust geotechnical engineering solutions to create solid foundations even on the shifty spongy nature of expansive clay RMG has 30 long years of experience dealing with these Colorado clays in addition they have a unique advantage because they have their own structural engineers on staff who work with their soil engineers to find an effective system for Jerry's project Rocky Mountain group begins by getting the lay of the land they perform a deep geotechnical evaluation and analysis to classify your soil type and the likeliest threat factors they can do soil testing geo hazard evaluation slope stability analysis environment assessment and more then when they know about the threats in the ground around your building they get to work with one or more of their major solutions that they've identified to place your building on a solid base there are four general types of deep foundation systems that the engineering teams at Rocky Mountain Group use to provide you a solid and stable base for your building first they might use helical piers which are similar to large steel screws twisted into the ground to anchor your foundation or they might use deep concrete piers which use large concrete columns dug deep into the ground and socketed into stable bedrock RMG also uses micro piles which are deep foundation elements made with high-strength small diameter steel casing and or a threaded bar which are designed to be stable even in very highly expansive soils but some situations call for driven piles these are relatively long slender columns that support extremely large loads and installed by impact hammering vibrating or pushing them into the earth but rocky mountain groups robust solution set goes beyond only piles and piers they're pushing the industry forward with alternative solutions that can treat expansive soil itself so you can use a simpler shallow foundation for example they can recommend an over dig system or a sub excavation system to replace the nightmarish clay soils with a low expansive soils mix so instead of sponge clay you get stable dirt reducing the expansion directly impacting your foundation third the engineers that RMG assigns to Jerry's team can design what's called a dead load system where they incorporate a less costly shallow foundation designed to be heavy enough to offset moderate uplift of the expansive clay without the significant expense of removing it there are many stiffened slab systems they use for low to moderate clays that place your building on one rigid mat of concrete one of the most innovative solutions in the residential and light commercial industries is tell ferma technologies a unique and innovative foundation system that the engineers at rocky mountain groups specialize in for solving the structural problems of expansive clay it uses high-strength lifting mechanisms that lift a post-tensioned structural slab up and away from the harmful effects of the expansive soils this system eliminates slab forms crawl spaces adjustable posts voided walls and best of all it can be adjustable Rocky Mountain group helped Jerry turn his nightmare project into a perfect dream he walked away with a building foundation design that he's confident is intended to remain structurally stable for a long long time so no matter what soil type you've got you can call the geotechnical and structural engineering team at Rocky Mountain Group to make your foundations stand the test of time even in the harshest conditions visit us on the web at our mg engineers comm or call us at 3:03 six eight eight nine for 75 or email us at I am interested at RMG engineers calm

Channel: Rocky Mountain Group

Views: 78,757

Rating: 4.7910447 out of 5

Keywords: Engineering (Industry), Geotechnical Engineering (Field Of Study), Expansive Clay, Colorado (US State)

Id: pvNm3h5Jrcs

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 05 2015