Need some DEEP French Drains, how can I do this or hire someone?
- Thread starter mancho
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This seemed mildly informative. Done in Houston, not next door, but same principals apply:
POST-FOUNDATION-REPAIR-ON-EXPANSIVE-SOILS.pdf
POST-FOUNDATION-REPAIR-ON-EXPANSIVE-SOILS.pdf
CurlyDave
Elite Member
It would be very unusual for the interior of a house to have enough temperature variation to be a problem. The absolute temperature doesn't matter at all as long as you can prevent the water from freezing.
You have to look it up and understand how it works.
Pick a number of reference points in your house which will move with the slab and which don't have anything easily compressible under them, like carpet. The first time you do it, it will be a pain in the donkey. By the second or third time you you will be able to measure 15-20 points in less than 2 hours.
The .pdf you just posted seems pretty good to me. Out on the West coast we usually use straight piers and do not count on any end pressure. 20 years ago I poured some belled piers, but these days they are not used here.
As you can imagine, adding any of these pier systems to an existing house is going to be highly disruptive of the interior.
While they list a number of disadvantages of the watering system, they all boil down to just one real issue. If you stop watering for any reason you are going to have problems. Keep your maintenance up, and don't rely on the least expensive components from a big box store to be reliable. Spend an hour checking it once a month.
California
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Thinking outside the box: Around here, water moves laterally beneath 3 ft of topsoil and above a 30 ft layer of impermeable hardpan. (and it's hard to pass a successful perc test to allow a septic system).
If your geology is similar - I wonder if the neighbors could go in together and drill a row of dewatering wells uphill from the problem neighborhood. Somebody with more specific knowledge can fill in the details but I think this is the remedy used when a highway is threatened by continual mudslides.
Digging individual drains around each house doesn't appear to be the best way to solve what is a common problem across many homes.
If your geology is similar - I wonder if the neighbors could go in together and drill a row of dewatering wells uphill from the problem neighborhood. Somebody with more specific knowledge can fill in the details but I think this is the remedy used when a highway is threatened by continual mudslides.
Digging individual drains around each house doesn't appear to be the best way to solve what is a common problem across many homes.
inveresk
Platinum Member
Interesting report, concise and comprehensible. This is the sort of thing I would have expected your engineer to provide, along with a recommendation on which specific system to adopt in your particular case, and why.
I'm assuming there's more than one engineering firm involved in the assessments in your area. If that's the case, I wonder if they exchange information at all. It seems not if your neighbour has already installed a 14 foot deep french drain system, plus piles, and these haven't been successful. I'd be very wary of any engineer who came along after that experience and suggested you do the same in the hope that you get a different result. I also wonder if he properly advised you of the high risks of failure.
Much as the concept of an active foundation system offends me, at the end of the day watering the soil might have to be the way you go. The other solutions appear very expensive and filled with so much uncertainty.
I've found this thread very interesting and informative. It's a real head scratcher, and a bit frustrating not being able to arrive at a definitive answer to the problem. I hope you do get it resolved at reasonable cost and keep this thread alive as you make progress.
Egon
Epic Contributor
The problem will probably resolve itself when the hill and fill material stop moving downhill.
I just feel sorry for the folks caught in the situation.
I just feel sorry for the folks caught in the situation.
woodlandfarms
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inveresk
Platinum Member
woodlandfarms said:
That history facility is neat. I didn't know it could do that.
Coyote machine
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I've read the entire thread and fear for your possible approaches to the problem at hand. I'd like to find a solution to your predicament for the least amount of $ BUT it will take what it takes to fix it right the first time. You're on the right track when gathering data from neighbors who have spent large amounts of money to basically get nowhere.
Here is what I suggest, (living in VT on clay soil with underground springs all around my two houses and barn; which took a 14' curtain drain to send the spring/ground water away from its foundation). My excavator estimated between 10-15 gallons per minute were flowing by my barn about 20' from the foundation when completed.:confused2:
I would start from scratch and devise a game plan and follow it to completion. First I would like you to give more detail about the digging up of the road above your property done by the water municipality...for what exact reason? Did they solve whatever the problem was? How long ago was this done? How long have you been in your floating house and when did it start to float, start to become worse- was it gradual or more sudden?
After answering these questions I would like you to start a notebook of all conversations you have with neighbors, engineers, construction folks, etc. and notes to yourself referencing what you found useful about them.
Your reference document and neighbors attempts to use piers and french drains exemplifies all the possible pitfalls and the need for someone to be very experienced at these techniques for them to be reasonably successful. AND most importantly they show what is NOT working and will likely not work for you either.
If you read back through this thread you may pickup on crucial info you disclosed. For instance about the developer who built the houses, etc. His or their lack of experience is combined with poor quality site selection and lack of knowledge as to how to prevent this type of disaster in the first place.
It occurs to me you might want to consider moving the house to a better lot and solving the problem once and for all. If you think of this solution as one on the far side of the extremes to which you might have to go to solve your dilemma everything else falls into perspective. Spending $80- 100K+ is one extreme that has already been proven to NOT solve the problem, and necessitates your neighbor having to throw good money after bad in an attempt to solve something that clearly cannot be solved by doing more of what hasn't worked to date.
Another idea if you are set on staying in this house for a long time is to jack it up and remove the offending clay and replace it with proper material for your climate. Clearly if the builder/developer had known what to fill the lots with he might have done so, but a LOT of builder/developers do only the absolute minimum to get the houses to the point of sale and then the underlying problems become evident after he's long gone.
There IS NO cheap solution to your issues. You can water your foundation in an attempt to keep the problem stabilized by having constant soil saturation BUT this will only treat the symptoms, NOT the cause, and it will not do much for your property value over time. Plus going forward chances are through building inspections required at closing your property will be discounted as will most homes in your development.
Your development may become the 'mud-canal' of Texas. I know the above is depressing but I'd rather be blunt than gloss over the seriousness of your situation.
Post back.
Here is what I suggest, (living in VT on clay soil with underground springs all around my two houses and barn; which took a 14' curtain drain to send the spring/ground water away from its foundation). My excavator estimated between 10-15 gallons per minute were flowing by my barn about 20' from the foundation when completed.:confused2:
I would start from scratch and devise a game plan and follow it to completion. First I would like you to give more detail about the digging up of the road above your property done by the water municipality...for what exact reason? Did they solve whatever the problem was? How long ago was this done? How long have you been in your floating house and when did it start to float, start to become worse- was it gradual or more sudden?
After answering these questions I would like you to start a notebook of all conversations you have with neighbors, engineers, construction folks, etc. and notes to yourself referencing what you found useful about them.
Your reference document and neighbors attempts to use piers and french drains exemplifies all the possible pitfalls and the need for someone to be very experienced at these techniques for them to be reasonably successful. AND most importantly they show what is NOT working and will likely not work for you either.
If you read back through this thread you may pickup on crucial info you disclosed. For instance about the developer who built the houses, etc. His or their lack of experience is combined with poor quality site selection and lack of knowledge as to how to prevent this type of disaster in the first place.
It occurs to me you might want to consider moving the house to a better lot and solving the problem once and for all. If you think of this solution as one on the far side of the extremes to which you might have to go to solve your dilemma everything else falls into perspective. Spending $80- 100K+ is one extreme that has already been proven to NOT solve the problem, and necessitates your neighbor having to throw good money after bad in an attempt to solve something that clearly cannot be solved by doing more of what hasn't worked to date.
Another idea if you are set on staying in this house for a long time is to jack it up and remove the offending clay and replace it with proper material for your climate. Clearly if the builder/developer had known what to fill the lots with he might have done so, but a LOT of builder/developers do only the absolute minimum to get the houses to the point of sale and then the underlying problems become evident after he's long gone.
There IS NO cheap solution to your issues. You can water your foundation in an attempt to keep the problem stabilized by having constant soil saturation BUT this will only treat the symptoms, NOT the cause, and it will not do much for your property value over time. Plus going forward chances are through building inspections required at closing your property will be discounted as will most homes in your development.
Your development may become the 'mud-canal' of Texas. I know the above is depressing but I'd rather be blunt than gloss over the seriousness of your situation.
Post back.
