Charlie:
Brandon in Jackson has too many boxes. He writes to us, he says, “This is my second time to have my house foundation jacked in pure cylinders added for the foundation. It’s a 30 year old house. My question is when they backfill these foundation repair locations, how critical is soil compaction at those spots?”
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Tom:
It’s not critical at all for the mere fact that you have piers there and the piers are going deeper than the hole that they dug to lay in there to put those piers in or drive those pilings however it was done. If you have a tunnel that’s done, that’s a little different because of the fact that that has to be back filled little bit differently with the different type of soil. As far as around the perimeter, not a big deal.
Charlie:
His problem here is that he doesn’t like this foundation company because–
Tom:
I’m sorry about that–
Charlie:
Here’s the reason why. He had a transferable warranty when he bought the house 2 years ago. Now he’s stuck with them. He’s got problems. He’s got to call the same guys because nobody else will come and do it.
Tom:
If it’s under warranty, yeah. You’re not going to cover somebody else’s warranty.
Charlie:
I’m not sure that these piers are going in under warranty. I don’t know.
Tom:
I don’t know.
Charlie:
We’re running a little long here but he has this idea he wrote deeper in his email here it says that after the last time they did the repairs, the soil sank down 10 to 12 inches. He does work in civil work and he knows that saturated soils don’t give good resistance. He’s wondering if that could be the reason that it sank again and he wonders, you’re going to like this, “What do you think if I poured a bag of concrete down there after they finish lifting and slamming the piers down, would that help?”
Tom:
No, I don’t think it’s good idea at all. Any hole you fill is going to settle and you’re going to have to refill it again. That’s just the nature of a hole. It will settle and it will have to be filled. You can do what my father said to do and that doesn’t work either that’s put 4 feet more than it needs on there like a giant mountain. He says, “It’ll settle in a year or two.” It doesn’t.