Foundations Continued

The trench gets deeper and longer and the piles grow larger.




The concrete took a bit of bashing to clear the corner, and the depth of the trench coupled with the height of the retaining board makes it hard work clearing the sand from the bottom of the trench.

I am trying to keep the top 12" of topsoil separate from the remaining 2' of sandy gravel - I hope there is a point to it later on, and that I don't simply fill a skip with the lot.

I also wonder whether it is possible to use the sand if it is sieved and washed - surely it can't be very different to the sand I will have to buy.  I don't mean for anything structural, but if I am laying any slabs and need a concrete mix could I use it?

Eventually I will open up the ground at the end of the two existing sets of foundations and see whether they will be reusable or not.  Obviously they have both had (or still have) 2100mm walls built on them so they are perfectly capable of carrying that loading and have been so for 50 years.  But whether that is acceptable to the Building inspector I don't know

I think there is a particular way in which new foundations need to under-pin existing ones to prevent movement/settlement cracks but I'm not sure about that.  Still I'm digging in sand which is coming up easily so it's not a major task even if I have to go down another 30cm or so.