If submitting a plan for building regs approval with the council etc,
what information is needed about the soil so they can check the
foundations are suitable. Or will they send someone out to do a soil
survey at my expense. ?
Simon.

wrote in message 
news:1127211938.267059.219660@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> If submitting a plan for building regs approval with the council etc,
> what information is needed about the soil so they can check the
> foundations are suitable. Or will they send someone out to do a soil
> survey at my expense. ?
> Simon.


Foundation inspection is part of the building control on-site inspection 
drill. Whatever the plans say, the foundations will have to be "suitable" 
and the BCO will require the builder to call him in to inspect them after 
digging and after concreting. Whatever the soil is like, you don't know what 
is down there until you dig (usually it's just the topsoil depth you are 
worried about but there may be a maze of old tree-roots (as my neighbour 
had) voids, other stuff.

Bob Mannix

> 

> Foundation inspection is part of the building control on-site inspection
> drill. Whatever the plans say, the foundations will have to be "suitable"
> and the BCO will require the builder to call him in to inspect them after
> digging and after concreting. Whatever the soil is like, you don't know what
> is down there until you dig (usually it's just the topsoil depth you are
> worried about but there may be a maze of old tree-roots (as my neighbour
> had) voids, other stuff.


Well I guess its best to do some test holes to see what's down there
then,
before doing anything else !
Cheers,
Simon.

On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 11:25:38 +0100,  wrote:


> If submitting a plan for building regs approval with the council etc,
> what information is needed about the soil so they can check the
> foundations are suitable. Or will they send someone out to do a soil
> survey at my expense. ?


Normally surveyors will be able to organise the testing of the mechanical  
properties of the soil, usually sampled from a test pit normally 1 m deep  
for this size of job. If you plan where the testpit is sited carefully,  
you can save a bit of digging. :-)

John Schmitt

-- 
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wrote in message
news:1127211938.267059.219660@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

> If submitting a plan for building regs approval with the council etc,
> what information is needed about the soil so they can check the
> foundations are suitable. Or will they send someone out to do a soil
> survey at my expense. ?
> Simon.
>

On mine the footings were specced at 1 metre depth and if BCO doesn't like
what he see's then you go deeper

Regards Jeff

Jeff wrote:

>  wrote in message
> news:1127211938.267059.219660@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> 
>>If submitting a plan for building regs approval with the council etc,
>>what information is needed about the soil so they can check the
>>foundations are suitable. Or will they send someone out to do a soil
>>survey at my expense. ?

> On mine the footings were specced at 1 metre depth and if BCO doesn't like
> what he see's then you go deeper


This happened when my extension was built: isn't that the usual 
procedure?  I wasn't aware that these test pits and soil samplings were 
commonplace without good reason.

David

On 20 Sep 2005 03:25:38 -0700, sm_jamieson@hotmail.com wrote:


>If submitting a plan for building regs approval with the council etc,
>what information is needed about the soil so they can check the
>foundations are suitable. Or will they send someone out to do a soil
>survey at my expense. ?
>Simon.


In my case I just dag till it was 300mm below floor level, but I was
on a rock/peble mixture.

You can work out the size of foundations from the wall load and soil
type, and there is a simple guide do do with how hard it is to hammer
in a wooden stake, which lets you work out soil strength.

Also you should have no vegtyable matter under the foundations, but I
have no idea how that works if your house is say on an ond bog.

Rick