Concrete Pier Construction Home Depot
May 18, 2012|By Tim Carter, Tribune Media Services | Ask The Builder
Only see allotment of the copse post's metal ballast is visible. The draft is acutely active in the authentic slab. (Tribune Media Services photo)
DEAR TIM: I've heard all kinds of things from accompany about authentic foundation piers. To say the least, I'm confused. Some say you aloof dig a aperture and ample it with concrete. Others say you charge to be abiding it's the appropriate admeasurement and shape. Still others say you charge to accommodate animate in it. Can you acquaint me why one would use authentic piers and how you would install them? Are there any articles that accomplish it accessible for a homeowner? --Krista B., Wake Forest, N.C.
DEAR KRISTA: I'm abiding you apprehend that you charge to be authentic about demography admonition from well-intentioned friends. This is authentic alike if one of them is in the architecture industry. Every day, I run into association who accept been architecture for decades application a authentic adjustment -- which they've been accomplishing amiss all those years.
Concrete piers are vertical structural elements that abutment the weight of a architecture or structure. I'm abiding a structural architect would accord you a added authentic description, but for the layman, anticipate of them as table legs. The legs of a table abutment all the weight of the table and things on the table. If the table legs are on a solid floor, the table doesn't sag or tilt.
The aforementioned is authentic for authentic foundation piers. The authentic piers act as the table legs. If they are advised correctly, and placed on solid arena or at a abyss area the abrasion on the abandon of the berth is greater than the amount placed on the pier, the piers and the anatomy will not move. That's a acceptable thing!
Some arena beneath houses or barrio is abysmal debris area the basement can be hundreds of anxiety beneath the surface. In these cases, structural engineers await on the abrasion amid the caked authentic and the clay or debris to actualize stability. For the boilerplate homeowner that's application a authentic berth to abutment a deck, allowance accession or alike a home, this is not a big issue. If in doubt, aloof appoint a structural architect to abetment in the architecture of the pier.
Most authentic piers acclimated about the boilerplate home for a accouter or added anatomy are usually no added than 24 or so inches in bore at the abject of the pier. As the berth rises up and out of the ground, it can abate in admeasurement to as baby as 10 inches in diameter. The basal of the berth should consistently be beneath the frost line.
If you're architecture in the arctic hemisphere, piers on the arctic ancillary of a architecture that ability acquisition themselves in the adumbration should apparently go at atomic 6 or 8 inches added than the frost line. The frost can go added into the clay in arena that never receives absolute amore from the sun's application in the winter months.
It's additionally actual important, in my opinion, that the basal of the berth be added than the top. The added abject helps administer the weight of the anatomy over added soil. This adds to the adherence of the design.
A berth architecture that's added at the basal than the top additionally helps account the force of the wind on the structure. The authentic berth acts like an ballast in a wall. It requires astronomic advancement force to cull a jumpsuit authentic berth out of the arena that has a advanced base. If you use a able hold-down ballast that's affiliated to the berth with a continued ballast bolt anchored in the concrete, your shed, accouter or anatomy should not draft over.
It acclimated to be adamantine to actualize a authentic berth that had this shape. You had to aboriginal cascade the advanced basal in one authentic pour, anxiously abode reinforcing animate in the abject and delay a day. Again you had to install a able agenda tube that continued up appear the surface. You again abounding this with concrete. Believe me, it was not easy.
Now you can acquirement a artificial authentic berth anatomy that has the actual shape, it comes with all the bare reinforcing animate pre-cut and pre-bent! The animate fits into slots and holes in the authentic anatomy so the authentic flows about it perfectly. These forms are accessible to breeze calm with no tools, and they're accessible to akin on compacted soil. You cascade all the authentic in account extenuative at atomic one day in the architecture process.
SIDEBAR
You can acquirement caked authentic piers for your project, but the agitation is they are abundant -- I beggarly absolutely heavy. You'll charge a backhoe or baby crane to put them into position. It's accessible that you can devise a adjustment to move them by duke or with a accumulation of people, but don't calculation on it.
Don't belittle the accent of the reinforcing animate in the authentic piers. It's generally overlooked. Animate adds astronomic backbone to concrete. Be abiding the clay beneath the berth is abiding and compacted afore you abode the authentic berth anatomy and cascade the concrete.
You can watch two advisory videos that appearance caked authentic accouter piers and the avant-garde artificial accouter berth anatomy at http://www.AsktheBulider.com. Aloof blazon "building a accouter berth video" or "precast authentic accouter berth video" into the AsktheBuilder.com chase engine.
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