Often, homeowners, wanting to make their structure more reliable and durable, are interested in the question - how to strengthen the foundation and tie the base of the house? Strengthening the foundation of buildings is a very difficult job, it will require not only good theoretical knowledge, but also solid practical experience. And it often turns out that building a new residential building will be much easier and more profitable than repairing the foundation of an old building.
For those who decided to strengthen the existing foundation, our article was created.
Strengthen or eliminate the cause?
Before deciding to start such a large-scale and expensive work, you should understand why exactly the negative changes occur in the foundation of the house - its destruction. The main reasons for starting such a process may be:
- violation of technology directly during the construction of the foundation: in this case, the foundation must be strengthened without fail;
- the soil in the area where the house is located is too wet. In such a situation, special attention should be paid to remove the guttering of the foundation and, if necessary, to equip the drainage of the foundation;
- on the site where the residential building was erected, the soil has a different composition, this leads to deformation. In such cases, you will need to implement a whole range of measures to restore the normal functional characteristics of the foundation of the house: this is strengthening, and drainage, and insulation, and replacing with crushed stone and sand some part of the unstable soil on the site.
Thus, before starting to strengthen the foundation, it is worth trying to make additional thermal insulation of the soil near the foundation, as well as to equip quality drainage. If these measures did not help stop the destruction, you can think about more serious work - to strengthen the most important structural element of your home.
Amplification methods
When talking about ways to strengthen the foundation, it is important to understand that a lot depends on the materials used to build your home. For blocks, for brick, for wood, the foundations will be different, which means that the options for how to strengthen the foundation of housing will vary.
If your house is wooden, with the help of special construction equipment you can raise the box and the base - correctly and carefully strengthen it. There are also cases when, under a wooden house, instead of a damaged one, a completely new foundation for an old house is being built. But in the event that your housing is built of stone or brick, it is unlikely that you will succeed in strengthening the foundation of the capital structure quickly and economically. Therefore, the work will be more ambitious, complex and expensive.
Most of the brick and stone buildings are erected on a strip base or on a slab foundation. In the second case, base problems are very rare, and therefore we’ll talk about how to properly strengthen the tape-type foundation.
Strengthening a monolithic tape: stages of work
Step 1. The primary task in order to eliminate the roll of the old foundation is to make the sole area larger. Such measures should be carried out on the heeling side of the foundation: it will need to be divided into several sections, each length up to two meters.
Step 2 For the first element of reinforcement, a trench breaks out, the depth of which exceeds the depth of your old base.
Step 3 In the old foundation, special holes are made for reinforcement (holes) by drilling. Such holes will make it possible to combine the new reinforcing element with the existing foundation. In addition, in the monolith, recesses are made - strips, they allow you to make the adhesion area of the concrete mixture larger.
Step 4. A reinforcing cage is knitted for a separate element of the foundation, the rods that are part of the old base are cemented.
Step 5. Formwork is put, the first element of reinforcement is poured with concrete. After the concrete strength reaches up to 70 percent, you can continue to work with other problematic elements: this is the only way to strengthen the foundation correctly, as reliably and efficiently as possible. The work should be carried out according to the same scheme as in the case of the first foundation element. Subsequently, the finished, reinforced elements are combined by the method of reinforcement inlet from all parts of the tape strengthening the foundation of the house.
Step 6 After this stage of work is completed, you can begin to repair the cracks: the foundation is dug in those areas where there are flaws, it is covered with cement, and high-quality waterproofing is necessarily laid.
If the sole of the tape base is lower than the depth of freezing of the soil, the work is carried out in exactly the same way - by the above method. If the problems with the tape bases are caused by the negative effect of groundwater, it is worth taking care of effective drainage.
And if the concrete has already begun to crumble, remove the upper damaged layer, treat the surface with cement milk and waterproof it well with quality materials. In the case when the damage is significant, the tape grows as described above - by mounting additional elements for reinforcement.
Base: we carry out the binding
To strengthen the foundation of a new residential building, it is necessary to make the basement strapping. It will be based on a strip foundation or on screw piles. If you want to strengthen the pile foundation, you need to place each connection of the beams under the piles. If the elements of the pile foundation are at a distance of more than two meters from each other, additionally use the logs that need to be installed flush with the main harness.
Step 1. Antibacterial treatment and waterproofing of the basement harness are carried out. A double layer of waterproofing is necessarily laid between the concrete and the harness (you need to use rolled materials - roofing felt, etc.). Water must not accumulate in the waterproofing material. Also, processing is carried out with special compounds for protection against decay.
Step 2 We determine the optimal cross-section of the beams in order to tie the base. With a pile foundation, beams are usually taken with a section of 200x200, they are connected to piles with anchor bolts. Piles must be located under the beam joints; joining without support is prohibited. If the foundation is tape, 150x50 boards are usually used. The harness reliably connects with the base of the building, before mounting, the accuracy of installation is determined by the building level - horizontally, vertically, diagonally.
In difficult cases, foundations may need to be replaced.
If you have some experience, as well as theoretical knowledge, the future homeowner will be able to strengthen the foundation of the structure and make the binding of the base without involving builders, with his own hands.