[neversatisfiedj]

I have a project to look at tomorrow - I will post reply as to how it went later .. anyhow I know the house is only 1 yr old and the customer wants walkway bordered by a retaining wall ( close to the house I would imagine ) stepping down to a patio by a new pool. My question is should I make my bases deeper because of the settling factor of new construction or should I advise her to wait another season for the property to settle ? As always you guys are the BEST ! Thanks for any feedback - much apprectiated.

[Bill Schwab]

If it has to be done this second, I would take a mini-X or lots of emanual labor and dig down under where the wal and walls are going to go, at least in the area of the basement overdig.

Then get your Wacker or a pad foot roller and rebuild the base in 8" lifts compacting the whole way up. If you don't want to
Wack it, remove the dirt and use 1" minus gravel and pack the crap out of that.

Inevitably, that overdig fill zone is going to drop. No matter what you do on top, no matter if you put 24" of gravel on top, if what is below settles, the top will follow right on down.

[chesie]

See I never understood this. Every piece of lit. you read, seminars, etc. say to dig down 4' and come back up with crusher run compacted in lifts.

Well your typical overdig is 8-9' deep. So you compacted 4' of it with gravel -what about the other 4-5'. Makes no sense to me what so ever. I steer away from these cause no matter what you do or how well you educate the homeowner it is still going to fail. The homeowner understands this (maybe ) what about their neighbors and everyone that drives by and says "what a crappy job".

[scott C]

Typically we will wait 6 wet months before installing any hardscape around new construction. Longer during dry periods. There really is no rule of thumb on how long to wait. The only sure fire way to ensure proper compaction is to do as bill said.

[neversatisfiedj]

Hey Bill , how far would you dig down ?

[Bill Schwab]

Personally, I would take it to the drain rock around the footing. Just be careful not to rip out the tile in the middle of the gravel.

[neversatisfiedj]

Damn I may just tell her to wait another year . LOL 2 Years sould be enough to settle.

[Bill Schwab]

And by h\that time some slick talking moron who knows it all will sell them on doing it his way because the overdig and settling is no big deal. Sell it as soon as you can with the added cost of removing the fill in the bid.

[Stonehenge]

Chesie, I share your frustration. There does not exist compaction equipment to pack 4' of clay, and still keep the home's foundation intact.

We'd still install a project like this; we'd tell them there is still a chance for settling, and that'd repair settling that occurred within our guarantee period (2 years). We'd over excavate, and compact lifts of 3/4-"- with layers of gried in between. There was a study in Florida recently about the power of grid to stabilize pavement bases, and I've found it to work pretty well.

[neversatisfiedj]

Stone can you post a link of the grid ? Compact in lifts of how much ? thanks guys