Need advice how to fix this mess: soil under the footings is soft

[ch1ch2]

Really appreciate if we can stick to the topic of this thread.
Thank you for understanding.

p.s.: Personally, I respect and appreciate any suggestion and advice from this community and not treat them as "amateur unverified and semi-anonymous advise" otherwise I'll not be here.

I agree with you.
It does no harm to ask for input.
There are a lot of very smart people out here in the forum.
There are also some not so smart. I can't understand why someone would assume you are going to take bad information and run with it.
Keep asking and keep listening.
I also agree with the thought of professional backed by his liability insurance.

 

[PAGUY]

Is a basement necessary or can you live with a house built on concrete piers with no basement equaling no water problems?
A detached garage can be a source for storing what you would have stored in basement. Build would be similar to cabin build. Easy peasey. :thumbsup:

 

[Egon]

From the picture I can't really discern how the basement will be built.

In general the top of the hill may be water saturated and will drain out given some time. ??? Depends on the topography & soil types and layering.

You could consider widening your foundation hole dig out and trenching around the perimeter with an added couple of trenches across the floor area. Fill the trenches with a coarse gap graded gravel with perforated pipe laid for drainage. Daylight the drainage system so no pumps are required. Pour your footings on a higher level on the same type of course gravel and go from there.

You could also lay a layer of course gravel with drainage pipes over the whole basement area. Probably easier and faster. Geotextile may be an option but should not be required.

The basic object is to put a drainage system in place that is lower than the footings and floor prior to starting with concrete. On the drainage system put in some standpipes on my the high side that will allow for future clean out flushes.

 

[PILOON]

I was involved with building 2 very large structures on clay, and I mean real solid clay.
Walking 100 ft and you had 2 inches added to your shoes.
What they came up with was to not disturb the trench while digging, only remove material and not otherwise play with it (like add material if too deep).
Then following a crushed stone base pour wider footings than normal and add rebar in footings.
I have been back to that building 19 years later and nary a sign of movement.
The structures were in the 500ft length!

That clay was one bugger to work with as it would stick to the excavators bucket. His 'trick' was to keep a foot sized big rock handy that he would shake and rattle in his bucket to loosen the sticky clay.
On totally flat ground even a 4 x 4 would get bogged down as tire treads would clog right up in first few feet.
Then try to climb a ladder, that was a total joke.
Our cure to the work site was to add many loads of coarse sand spread with a 'dozer. Fortunately a sand pit was merely 10 mins away from the site.

 

[Egon]

I was involved with building 2 very large structures on clay, and I mean real solid clay.
Walking 100 ft and you had 2 inches added to your shoes.
What they came up with was to not disturb the trench while digging, only remove material and not otherwise play with it (like add material if too deep).
Then following a crushed stone base pour wider footings than normal and add rebar in footings.
I have been back to that building 19 years later and nary a sign of movement.
The structures were in the 500ft length!

That clay was one bugger to work with as it would stick to the excavators bucket. His 'trick' was to keep a foot sized big rock handy that he would shake and rattle in his bucket to loosen the sticky clay.
On totally flat ground even a 4 x 4 would get bogged down as tire treads would clog right up in first few feet.
Then try to climb a ladder, that was a total joke.
Our cure to the work site was to add many loads of coarse sand spread with a 'dozer. Fortunately a sand pit was merely 10 mins away from the site.

Is that the stuff that turns liquid and flows when disturbed?

 

[PILOON]

Egon, for sure it was like puree when stirred.
Funny enough however it supported fields of nice hay but don't remove that covering,
This land was not far from a river bed so I suspect that it was long ago silt deposit from ice age melt back.
This was downstream from Ottawa.

I also met the same gooey clay like base on the North Shore of the St Lawrence river where we used to snow goose hunt.
Again all indications of being long ago river silty deposits,
the difference from high to low tide was almost a half mile and man did those sink box blinds stink.

 

[Egon]

That stuff does cause problems along the St.Laurence.

 

[Paddy]

We had an engineer look at our soil. Wide footers was the outcome, cheep insurance. But our home is over 400 cubic yards of concrete

 

[RedNeckRacin]

Make sure they follow the rebar schedule or the wider footer won't mean a hill of beans! I would want to see rebar chairs and all of the joints wire tied. I'd also be in favor of bending the bars around the corners and not having cuts ends there.

 

[EddieWalker]

Make sure they follow the rebar schedule or the wider footer won't mean a hill of beans! I would want to see rebar chairs and all of the joints wire tied. I'd also be in favor of bending the bars around the corners and not having cuts ends there.

YES!!!

One of the quickest ways to tell the difference between a good concrete crew and hacks is if they use chairs under the rebar. The hacks will tell you that they lift it as they go, the pros know this is a joke and impossible to accomplish.