Frost, and heaving of post frame buildings

[RickB]

I know it is your building and all the experts will run away when things go wrong.
I work with a friend who wanted to build a glass roofed awning over his back deck.The glass roof was to be 7' out by 16' long on a 2 //12 pitch .
He has a chemistry degree which made it worse because he knew he was smarter than the average bear.
It took me 6 months of planning at many lunchs sitting on the computer all having fun to design 2 holes to support his awning.

He wanted easy
PT 4x4 = no
PT 6x6 with cement around = no
steel 3x3 thinwall cement around = no

So this went on for weeks, we even had some in the shop say they would come over and dig the job to shut us up.

So for everyone of his quickies I said PROVE IT with pictures and building code practices.

I FINALLY WON, poured sono tube cement deeper 3 pieces of rebar, footer ,4 1/2" bolts at 6" above ground level to a plate with 4"x4" steel tube by 12' tall.

I LOST ON the top plate he wanted to notch the tubing to hold the double 2" x 10" beam.
When he cut the tubing notchs the tube tops went BANANA because tubes are rolled and welded.

I consulted on half of his kitchen remodel that was contracted.
I consulted on the driveway interlocking that was contracted.

We are now debating motion sencing lights.

The biggest fun that comes up is that he says ( Ok you know the light at the front door), and I answer NO I have NEVER been to your house except on paper every lunch hour.

He failed the Emission Test P0300 ( random cross fire ) and curb idle high CO. I am changing his plugs on paper, egr , cat ,code reader.

It keeps me out of trouble at lunch time.

Do you serve LUNCH?

Craig Clayton

That's all well & good, but if you don't get below frost depth, ANYTHING will heave, period.

 

[Craig Clayton]

Hello RickB
You will notice that my desk columns are 6'6" deep.
I drilled my holes 5'4" before backfilling and then with grading and interlocking final grade the columns are 6'6" below grade.

It is hard on paper to make your friend dig a deep hole when they keep looking for the EASY BUTTON.

I was looking at the 3 PTH auger top link posts.
I have been playing with making a sliding drive extension on my 3 PTH. I have already made 2 extensions one 12" one 18". I should take some pics if there is any interseted members. These extensions are 2" schedule 40 pipe with a solid nose welded in. These are NOT HIGH TECH.

Craig Clayton

 

[Gizmo2]

Do we really think depth has a lot to do with the OP problem? I am not so sure.

 

[Egon]

For the OP: as stated the supports have to be set below frost level or the ground heated to prevent freezing. Probably easiest is to replace the the existing piles with ones that extend to below the frost line.:thumbsup:

Look up "Frost Heaves" on Google.

 

[BMod]

I am not so sure either. The building contractor/manu. says they only need to be in the ground 4' 6" to meet local codes? When I dig up a pole in the spring/summer, there is space and dirt between the concrete doughnut, and pole, up to 2 to 3 inches. That leads me to believe the pole is going up, but the concrete doughnut is staying put.
The building contractor/manu. says it is my site, nothing they are going to do. I told the guy his guys are suppose to be experts did they not see this coming and could have told me I need to do this or that. I hired them to build me a solid pole barn, not one that move up and down. If it was not going to work, I wish someone would have told me it would not work. The guy who came out to look at my building to see what was going on told me "if you wanted a pole building built here today, we would not build it, we would design you a building with a concrete foundation. That is all good and well, but what changed in the last 7 years? I think the ground is still the same, lol.
The contractor/manu. wants me to dig up the entire 135' wall, 1 1/2' on the inside, and 1 1/2' on the outside down to bottom of pole depth, and then backfill with non frost susceptible fill. And put in drain tile. Or put insulation (r-10 min.) in, 5' on the inside, and 5' on the outside, 1" down, the 135' of the building.
Once again would have not been too bad when the building was built, but now it would be a big mess, and I am not even sure these fixes would work?
I would rather do something that only involved digging by the poles. I still think the contractor/manu. are somewhat at fault here for not spotting the issue at the time of construction. That is why I hired someone to build it for me, and did not do it myself..........

 

[s219]

I think that expansive soil/clay could be as much an issue as the frost -- the clay is likely shrinking/swelling with water in conjunction with frost, and it will amplify the issue. If the issues vary from post to post or side to side, then it indicates differences in moisture content and would be characteristic of shrink/swell clay.

Around here, we'd deal with these sorts of issues by replacing the soil in the area of each footing, or buffering the footing from the surrounding soil. I have only done this in the context of foundation footings, and haven't thought about how I'd do it with pole barn piers. But I am set to build a pole barn in some shrink/swell clay that goes down about 40", so I will need to figure it out.

Offhand, I'd probably dig the holes extra wide and deep enough to poke through the clay layer into stable sand below, pour the pier in the middle, and then fill around the pier with compacted sand as a buffer. That way the clay soil can do its thing shrinking and swelling outside the hole, and the sand will buffer the pier. Sometimes the buffer can be a mix of sand and the original clay.

 

[RickB]

Hello RickB
You will notice that my desk columns are 6'6" deep.
I drilled my holes 5'4" before backfilling and then with grading and interlocking final grade the columns are 6'6" below grade.

It is hard on paper to make your friend dig a deep hole when they keep looking for the EASY BUTTON.

I was looking at the 3 PTH auger top link posts.
I have been playing with making a sliding drive extension on my 3 PTH. I have already made 2 extensions one 12" one 18". I should take some pics if there is any interseted members. These extensions are 2" schedule 40 pipe with a solid nose welded in. These are NOT HIGH TECH.

Craig Clayton

Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see anything in your original dissertation that mentioned depth of the footers.

 

[RickB]

I think that expansive soil/clay could be as much an issue as the frost -- .

Depth to frost is the issue here. Not much doubt about it.

 

[Gizmo2]

BMod,
I think you are pretty much on point with what you say in your last post.
I do not believe you have frost pushing up your post but rather frost pulling up the posts.
Do the posts have uplift anchors? If not I would say the issue may stem from an incompetent contractor.

 

[BMod]

Up lift anchor, consists of a piece of 2"x6" board nailed to the side of the post to make the post 1 1/2" wider at the very bottom of the post. So up lift surface area is only 1 1/2" wide by 5", basically the butt end of a 2x6. I thought this was kind of cheesy also......