When choosing a foundation for your home, you should take into account the characteristics of the site on which it will stand. First of all, you need to contact the local geodetic service. In it you can be enlightened about the soils on which you will build a cottage. The fact is that heaving soils can cause a lot of trouble, and nearby groundwater will not lead to anything good.
Professionals will be able to give you detailed recommendations on what kind of home base to use. But due to the high cost of this kind of work, they are not suitable for everyone. That is why we will consider the grillage foundation, which is characterized by high reliability and versatility of use.
However, when building a frame cottage, you can get by with the simplest light foundations. For example, light columnar bases will fit perfectly in this case. But if you are planningto build something more serious, then you can not do without a quality foundation. For example, a grillage foundation is just right for a quality log or brick house.
Piles for it can be made of metal, concrete or a combined method. They differ not only in weight, size and shape, but also in mounting methods. In the simplest version, you can generally use specially prepared logs.
The only problem is that over time, the tree inevitably loses its performance, which can lead to cracks not only in the foundation, but also in the supporting walls. Therefore, a pile-grillage foundation (the price of which is quite high in this case) is best done on the basis of reinforced concrete structures.
Depending on the required distribution of the weight of the house, the piles can be placed both evenly (along the perimeter of the foundation of the house) and in a "cluster" way, supporting the most dangerous areas. The grillage is good because it allows even on unstable soils to make a one-piece monolithic foundation pillow. Piles can be completely driven into the ground, their tops can be left on the soil surface, or they can be significantly removed from the soil. In any case, the grillage foundation will reliably cope with its task.
Ways of its installation can be very different. The easiest way is to use ready-made reinforced concrete driven piles, which are made directly at the factory. But for private housing construction theyare used extremely rarely, as they have to use heavy construction equipment. Therefore, the drilling method is most often used. In this case, a well of the required configuration is dug, into which the finished reinforcement is lowered directly. But again, it is not always possible to build a strip-grillage foundation in such a reliable way, since not everyone has the opportunity to call a drilling rig.
In this case, bored piles can be used. A pipe of sufficient diameter is driven into the ground, into which a little concrete is poured. After the first batch hardens, it is removed and a new portion is poured. But the easiest way to make a grillage foundation is using screw piles. Due to the fact that they are made of high-quality metal, screwing them into the ground is not too difficult.
