Cut and Fill

To see the video on this subject go to 'Cut and Fill and Piered Footing System'

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When we have a block of land that is not level we have a couple of options as to what we can do. We can work with it or we can level it out. 

The process of leveling the block is called Cut and Fill because you will need to remove material (soil) from part of the Block, ‘Cut’ and bring in controlled fill to build up the rest of the block, ‘Fill’. Remember that the vegetation will need to be removed from anywhere that you will be placing the fill. If it is left in place it will rot and create voids in the fill and then subsequent movement.

This process also involve the construction of Retaining walls to hold back the material that is not cut out and the fill that is brought in. The construction of Retaining walls will be covered in a separate Blog.

Once the fill is in place construction can commence as normal however we still need to consider the foundation materials. It really doesn't matter how well you compact the fill it will almost certainly move at a different rate to that of the natural inplace material. This i s problem as the building footings will pass through both.

Therefore we need to connect the footing that is in the fill with the natural ground line. 

This is achieved by drilling piers in the bottom of the footing through the fill and into the natural ground line. The footing are now effectively spanning across the piers, therefore the pier will need to be deeper than those sitting on the undisturbed ground.







Piers can also be used in slab construction for the same reasons.