A Little Gem About Foundations Your steel building will need some type of foundation on which to anchor the columns and thereby tie the whole structure together. Some agricultural buildings are designed to have dirt or gravel floors and consequently use concrete piers (footings) instead of a full slab; however, a concrete slab is best for most situations.  Whatever foundation you use, we strongly recommend that you employ an experienced local foundation engineer to design it. Your erection drawings will include an "anchor-bolt setting plan with reactions," which will give a qualified engineer the necessary data to design a suitable foundation for your building. You should note that the engineer will also take a good, hard look at the soil. The soil conditions are of utmost importance and should under no circumstances be ignored. To give you a slightly better insight into this aspect, read a little about ground conditions below. Ground Conditions If a building is to be constructed in an area with clay soils one should be aware that clay soils have been found to expand 23 cm or more if subjected to long cycles of drying or wetting, thus producing powerful forces that can shear foundations and lift lightweight buildings. Some soils with high organic content may, over time, compress under the building load to a fraction of their original volume, causing the structure to settle. Other soils tend to slide under loads.

Soils that have been modified in some way often perform differently, especially when other soil has been added to or mixed with existing soil, or when the soil has been made wetter or drier than normal, or when cement or chemicals such as lime have been added. Sometimes the soil under a proposed building varies so greatly over the entire site that a building simply cannot be constructed safely or economically.

Soil and geological analyses are necessary, therefore, to determine whether a proposed building can be supported adequately and what would be the most effective and economical method of support.

If there is sound bedrock a short distance below the surface of the construction site, the area over which the building loads are distributed can be quite small because of the strength of the rock. As progressively weaker rock and soils are encountered, however, the area over which the loads are distributed must be increased.

Do not purchase an Erf if you have even the slightest suspicion of soil condition problems - it can cost you a small fortune. Remember; the cheapest stand may not always be the least expensive.

Take a look at this little story:

An important institution and had the desire to build a fitting monument to its achievements. They decided that a tower of great architectural beauty would be built in close proximity. Since the site was close by, ground conditions were well known and were taken for granted. Besides, soil investigations always take time and add considerably to the cost. Was this a recipe for failure? Of course it was.

Construction commenced but when the tower reached four storeys tilting became evident and construction was halted. Years later, construction was resumed only to be halted after adding four more storeys. More years later, a penthouse is added off-center in an attempt to redistribute the load. Even so, the penthouse floor was so out-of-level that one side had to be raised by over 30cms (12 inches). Under the added load the tower continued to incline, and then became several degrees more out of plumb, and was consequently never used for its originally intended purpose.

Today, the tilting continues to progress, albeit very slowly; but by now the tower has engendered a great fondness so that every effort is made to save it. Many and various are the efforts to stabilize the tower and even to right it, but more often the condition is aggravated rather than improved. Needless to say, dignitaries and politicians wade in with threats, counter threats and law suits.

Our point is however that all this drama occurred ONLY because the soil conditions were never checked.

For a detailed history of the Pisa tower, visit: http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/ltpisa/ltpisa.html

Purely as a matter of interest, its lean is 4 metres (13 ft) from the vertical. Legend has it that Galileo took advantage of this inclination to carry out experiments with weight in free fall, dropping weights from the top of the tower.

 Trust our years of positive construction experience and craftsman expertise to confidently guide your specific building project smoothly to sure success.

You may just experience enormous benefits.

Bresbou Construction CC, Pendulum Construction CC,

Monyakus Construction CC and Universal Coverings (Pty) Ltd

Tel: (011) 453 4401

Cell: 084 303 8179

Fax: 086 640 4667 (Local SA Faxes ONLY)

E-mail: factory@steel-building-projects.com