A better workshop foundation?

[Mike Heidrick]

I used a mesh riser called mesh-up i found online out of Louisiana. I installed them every 12". Pex was tied to mesh. I wanted pex in middle of 5" slab. They dont break when they walked on them. Mesh acted like a box spring and no bringing up the mesh etc. Pretty sweet. My concrete guy never heard of them before and now he resells them.

[John K Jordan]

I used a mesh riser called mesh-up i found online out of Louisiana. I installed them every 12". Pex was tied to mesh. I wanted pex in middle of 5" slab. They dont break when they walked on them. Mesh acted like a box spring and no bringing up the mesh etc. Pretty sweet. My concrete guy never heard of them before and now he resells them.

That sounds promising. I'll tell my architect son. A concrete guy told me the architects and builders would have a fit if they knew how often plastic chairs broke when they stepped on them.

JKJ

[Mike Heidrick]

Watch the Mesh Ups by Lotel video on youtube. I bellieve your concrete guy because I went to the building stores and stood and broke every chair I tried . Only one that worked was the mesh up. It was funny to see ythe workers faces. I went back and looked and we did 18-24 inches not every 12".

https://youtu.be/jUpOVVUt3Bg

[Bill Jobe]

After sending the new guy an email a couple of days ago I heard back from him today. He's backed out.

[Mike Heidrick]

Wait till spring an option?

[Peter Christensen]

You're running out of time and may need to reconsider the screw piles I suggested last month or wait until spring. It will get you to a point where you can build the structure and then decide if you want to concrete the floor inside with temporary heat or build a pressure treated wood floor hung on the beams. The floor could be completed in the spring.

[Bill Jobe]

You're running out of time and may need to reconsider the screw piles I suggested last month or wait until spring. It will get you to a point where you can build the structure and then decide if you want to concrete the floor inside with temporary heat or build a pressure treated wood floor hung on the beams. The floor could be completed in the spring.

Help me out, Peter. What are screw piles?
I'm considering building a frame out of 6x6s ,filling them with gravel and compacting it. But I don't know if I can do a good enough job to provide proper support.
I'm on my own at this point. I just lost who I thought was my only friend in the world. Turns out he was harboring deep resentments for me, so I'm now a one man show. And my marriage is falling appart as I am typing this.
Ever wish you'd never been born?

Bill

[Peter Christensen]

Bill I mentioned Screw Piles or Helical Piles in post 13. They are basically a pipe or bar with a plate on the bottom that has a spiral shape. The installer brings a machine in (often a skid steer) and screws it into the ground. When done they cut them all off at the height needed and then bolt or weld a fitting (plate, saddle, etc.) on top. They come in different sizes to suit the loads and application. I was looking into the costs this past summer and 2 3/4" inch ones to hold up a deck were about $400Can each installed. That would be a little over $300 in your money. When you factor in that you don't have to dig holes, use Sono tubes or make forms of some kind, cost of concrete, access etc., and the fact that they can be installed in a morning, they can make sense.

A couple links to get a start at understanding them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_piles
https://www.technometalpost.com/en-C...helical-piles/
Look at images when you do a search for helical piles to see what can be done with them.

You don't have a location in your info so I can't look up to see if there are any installers near you.

As for the personal things you are dealing with. I don't even come close to offering good advice to you other than to say go to a professional counsellor to talk to.

[Bill Jobe]

Bill I mentioned Screw Piles or Helical Piles in post 13. They are basically a pipe or bar with a plate on the bottom that has a spiral shape. The installer brings a machine in (often a skid steer) and screws it into the ground. When done they cut them all off at the height needed and then bolt or weld a fitting (plate, saddle, etc.) on top. They come in different sizes to suit the loads and application. I was looking into the costs this past summer and 2 3/4" inch ones to hold up a deck were about $400Can each installed. That would be a little over $300 in your money. When you factor in that you don't have to dig holes, use Sono tubes or make forms of some kind, cost of concrete, access etc., and the fact that they can be installed in a morning, they can make sense.

A couple links to get a start at understanding them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw_piles
https://www.technometalpost.com/en-C...helical-piles/
Look at images when you do a search for helical piles to see what can be done with them.

You don't have a location in your info so I can't look up to see if there are any installers near you.

As for the personal things you are dealing with. I don't even come close to offering good advice to you other than to say go to a professional counsellor to talk to.

Thank you,Peter. I will look into them.

[Dan Rude]

You might also look if anyone does this system: http://www.startribune.com/a-new-typ...ers/211348291/ I have seen them in JLC quite a bit. Dan

[Peter Christensen]

Those were used on This Old House last weekend.

[Bill Graham]

Let's go back to the get-go and talk about gravity, that thing that tries to put the roof into the basement(or the ground in your case).

The first thing we have to know is how much weight will be carried on the outside walls. First to consider is the live load, like what your average 200-lb shop gorilla produces stomping around on the floor and the dead load(what the floor materials weigh). International Residential Code specifies for anything other than a sleeping space a floor must support 40 lb/sft live load and 10 lb/sft dead load. That covers the gorilla but doesn't consider anything other than furniture and rugs, definitely not stationary tools.

Next we have to support the walls, a typical wall weight for 2x4 studs with cement siding and 5/8" gyp board is 12 lb/sft. For wood siding and 1/2" gyp call it 8 lb/sft. So an 8' wall weighs approximately 64 lb. for every linear foot if you use wood siding and 1/2 gyp..

Then there's the ceiling and roof. The IRC specs ceilings without inhabitable attics and limited storage at 20/10(live load/dead load). Same specs for the roof unless you live in an area with snow load. I live in Georgia so snow load isn't something we have to deal with, you can do some research and modify the numbers if you do.

Now we get down to arithmetic: how much weight do the footings have to carry? Assuming your 12x20 building has floor joists,walls, ceiling joists and rafters running the short dimension, it's just a matter of punching #'s into your calculator. The long side of the building is carrying half of the total load so....

Floor load per square foot is 6'x50 lb/sft=300 lb/lft, wall load is 64 lb/lft, , ceiling load is 6'x30 lb/sft=180 lb/lft, roof load is the same so add in another 180 for roof load and the total load on your footing is 660 lb/lft. That's pretty much moot since ready-mix concrete is rated at a minimum of 2000 lb/sft and even the most miserable clay soil(like we have here in Georgia is rated at 1500 lb/sft. So far, so good.

But you have another issue, the frost line. I think I read your frost line is 32", if that's the case a continuous footing would have to be 32" deep at the slab perimeter. That's a lot of concrete for your building, it would be 60 lft at 12" wide, 32" deep. About 6 yd, according to my calculator. Add in your slab at 4" thick and there's another 3 yd. So you're talking a full truck of ready-mix. Piers supporting beams start sounding like a reasonable alternative. But the question is how many piers?

A 4x6 SYP beam will carry 560 lb/lft on a 4' span so you would need 5 piers on each long side carrying 1240 lb./pier. A 12" pier would carry that load so you would need 5 piers at 12"x32" for a total of 3 yards of concrete for both sides. So you save 6 yd. of concrete by using piers but you get a gravel floor and you'll pay a delivery charge on less than a truckload of concrete.

That's not considering tool weight that will go far beyond the 10 lb/sft dead weight these calcs are based on. Never mind that the 2x4 joists spanning 12' won't support anything more than a lawnmower, IRC doesn't bother rating them in their span tables. I'd be OK with walking on that floor but not if it's loaded.

My suggestion is that you pour a slab with turn-down footings beyond the frost line and build your shop on top of it.

Just so you know, I've been building houses for the last 25 years and I haven't had any structural problems. My roofs stay out of my basements.

[Bill Jobe]

The weight will be spread more evenly with an Amish building. The weight will be on 4 20 foot long 4xs.

I recall quite a number of years ago when Billy Myers built a new drag strip in Texas. It's been said it was pre-stressed concrete, something that meant a lot when you are trying to apply 10,000 hp and get it to stick.
If memory serves that is where the first 300mph run was made.
Not official according to NHRA, but 300 just the same. Eddy Hill, I believe.
Could that maybe be what Frank was referring to?

[Andrew Seemann]

If you went the slab route, you probably would not need to go all 32 inches down to the frost line. Here in MN, for detached buildings like garages and sheds, we normally use a what is called a floating slab foundation. 4 inches thick in the middle and the outside is 12" x 12" tapered up to the 4" middle. The increased thickness on the perimeter is to support the weight of the walls. Any internal support posts would also require a thickening of the slab under them. The main reason for them here is that they work, and we don't need to go down 42 - 60 inches to get below the frost line for a simple outbuilding. Main thing is that you can't have a direct connection to a building with frost footings (like a house), because they may move at different rates in the spring thaw.

http://www.minneapolismn.gov/www/gro...ert_264724.pdf

[Bill Jobe]

Yes, I think I could see the problem with that.
I'm just really bummed out that everyone I hired to do the job backed out so now i'll be without my lathe for the most part, til spring.