It’s no secret that homes in Oklahoma can struggle with foundational issues. Our state’s clay soil easily contracts and expands due to our rainy and dry seasons, which means that it will shrink when extremely dry and heave when it is wet causing a home’s foundation to shift.
Newly constructed homes built on poor soil will eventually have foundation movement and settlement. The shifting soil beneath a foundation will cause the foundation to shift and move and may lead to foundation failure.
Installing piers under your new construction footings will prevent foundation problems from the start.
If you are building a custom home or are designing a build-out, installing piers before installing the foundation can pay off in the long run by protecting your home from structural damage.
Here we’re performing a standard proctor test and soil classification. It’s a good idea to have a baseline for soil compaction when you plan to bring in fill dirt to build the pad site…or if the site has a lot of fill to begin with.
Drilling pier holes “to the point of rejection” with 5 foot spacing
New construction piers are dug deep into the soil through the unstable soil layers until they reach a solid soil layer.
Footings are an important part of foundation construction—made of concrete with rebar reinforcement poured into an excavated trench. Footings support the foundation, prevent settling, and help reduce and eliminate incidences of frost heaving.
Steel is installed into the piers and connected to the steel in the footings before concrete is poured
