Columnar bath foundation: an affordable method of arranging using pipes

Before building any capital building, it is necessary to build a foundation. There are several varieties and you will have to choose one of them. This choice depends, first of all, on what exactly you need to build.

If it is a small and light house, a bathhouse, a garage or any other non-massive structure, then the easiest way is to lay a columnar foundation of pipes.

What is a column foundation?

Such a foundation is a support dug into the ground, at intervals of 1.5-3 m from each other. In this case, the pillars must necessarily be located at the corners of the building and at the intersection points of walls and partitions (if they are provided for by the project).

The undoubted advantage of the columnar foundation is its low cost and speed of construction. Compared to all other types, a columnar base needs much less reinforcement and concrete. In addition, drilling wells is much easier and faster than digging trenches or a foundation pit.

Despite the simplicity of the design, the strength of such a foundation is quite high, but only if the entire complex of work has been carried out correctly.

Advice from the master!

Please note that this type of foundation excludes the possibility of arranging basements. Therefore, a columnar foundation is the right choice when a building is erected on a slope or on soft ground, which does not allow using another type of foundation.

Support poles can be made of different materials: concrete, metal, asbestos cement, brick, wood. Which one to choose is up to you, but experts note that the best options are, after all, concrete and asbestos cement.

• Supports made of these materials are the most durable
• They will not crack under the influence of the mass of the building or frost
• Installation work is the fastest

Construction of the base of the building

The first thing you will need to do is to draw up a construction project with all the necessary calculations and drawings. These documents should also include the correct foundation plan on which you will work. Next, you need to choose a place for the building, and you can begin construction.

On the site where the foundation will be located, it is necessary to cut the sod and remove the top layer of soil, about 30 cm deep. Following this, you will need to mark the future base and mark the places for the supports. Using a drill or a hand grab, drill wells, the diameter of which should be 25 cm and a depth of about 150-170 cm. What exactly the wells should be depends on the depth of soil freezing in your area.

At the bottom of each of the wells, it will be necessary to pour gravel or crushed stone to a height of 20 cm. Next, install a reinforced concrete, metal or asbestos-cement pipe with a cross section of 20 cm in each hole. The outer walls of a kind of formwork must be compacted with soil.

Make sure that all pipes are strictly vertical, if necessary, strengthen them with horizontal formwork. Once the formwork is in place, prepare the concrete.

Advice from the master!

You should not save on the brand of cement, the higher it is, the better. Use M400, and even better M500. The ratio of cement: crushed stone: sand is preferably 1: 3.5: 2.5. After the concrete has set, it must be watered for the first 3-4 days.

Fill one-third of the internal cavities in the pipes with prepared concrete. Then lift them up so that the solution spills. As a result, expanded bases are obtained at the bottom of the wells, which makes the foundation stronger and more resistant to negative influences.

Pipes must be raised to the level that appears in your plan. You will need to mark this height by pulling the cord when marking the construction site.

After this operation, pour the concrete mortar almost completely into the holes, not reaching the upper edge of the pipes only 10-15 cm. When the mixture is poured, insert reinforcing rods into the cavities.

Now it remains only to wait for all the pillars to dry. Much here depends on weather and climatic conditions: temperature, air humidity, presence or absence of wind. In sunny weather, the solution can completely cure within 2-3 weeks, but often much more time is required - up to 1 month.

Basically, the columnar foundation is already ready. If you want, you can make it even more durable if you connect all the supports together with a grillage. Foundations with a grillage exclude the possibility of tilting the supporting pillars, and, therefore, the building will be even more stable.

In order to save money, roofing material or glassine can be used instead of pipes for columnar bases. The material is rolled into a cylinder having two layers and the desired diameter.

The wire can also be replaced with construction tape. Further, the formwork is installed in wells, which are poured with concrete mortar according to the principle described above. To compact the mixture, use a building vibrator.

In the version with metal pipes, it is necessary to protect them from rust. You can coat them with bituminous mastic or use some special industrial compound. It is also possible to increase the corrosion resistance of the metal by wrapping the pipes in two layers with roofing material.