Housing foundation requirements

Question

Explain the performance of low-rise housing foundations. Also explain Housing foundation requirements?

Answer 1

Housing foundation requirements:

Details of the requirements of the Building Regulations requires the foundations to be designed to transmit the building loads into the ground safely, and without causing movements of the structure or adjacent ground that may impair the stability of any part of an adjacent building.

In addition to the requirements of the Building Regulations, which are concerned primarily with health and safety, the foundation design must ensure that the movements associated with both the loading effects of the house (which can lead to settlement) and external effects associated with the underlying ground (which can lead to subsidence or heave) are within acceptable or tolerable levels.

Atkinson presents definitions of settlement and subsidence as follows:

Settlement: Movement in the structure caused by the weight of the building compressing the underlying ground.

Subsidence (and Heave): Movement in the structure caused by the loss of ground support below the foundation or as a result of volumetric changes, either expansion or shrinkage, in the founding materials.

Movements must be sufficiently controlled to ensure that they do not lead to unacceptable levels of distortion and cracking in the structure and associated services connections that may cause problems with the everyday use of the building.