Due to occasional excessive groundwater I am looking for an alternative to cardboard sonotubes. After digging footers (12 inch diameter) heavy rains caused an increase in groundwater which resulted in the collapse of the sonotubes, while waiting for an inspection by our township.
We are located in Bucks County Pennsylvania. Can anyone recommend an alternative?
Replies
I'm not an engineer and have not tried this, but it seems like either corrugated plastic drain "tile" might work--or better yet, corrugated metal tubes (like small diameter culvert).
Sonotube is just a manufactured form that was developed to replace the labor of building forms from wood,etc. So it sounds like you'll have to go back to the basics of building your forms from wood and use the sonotube for above grade applications. You might try pouring a little quicker, after all the concrete mix is wet also and the sonotube withstands deformation fine.
The corrugated metal is a good idea but you'll need a partner style dry cut saw, the fumes from a cutting torch are not so good for you...
Edited 2/16/2005 10:20 pm ET by pye
Somewhere here or perhaps recently in FHB magazine I saw a "form a pier" product- it was a molded HDPE plastic form which you basically set in the hole, backfilled and then filled with concrete like a sonotube- except it had an integral footer form and the slippery HDPE outside part made it very resistant to "frost-jacking" (adfreezing). It would also be water resistant and unlikely to collapse after a rain...
it was the last issue of FHB that Haywood Robertson mentioned those. Kind of shaped like an inverted martini glass so you get a good footing base intergral with the column itself and resisting frost upheave. Made of some kind of plastic. Second step in evolution from the Bigfoot pods designed to fit the sonotubes. All one unit now.
I don't know the name. I just call asking for "Those new fangled bigfoot forms things"
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Corrugated drain pipe is one option. I used them for a post for an electric meter. Rentable spring forms of fiberglass, albeit expensive, are another.
Up here where frost is effective, we could not use a corrugated form. That would be disastorous. The surface would let the frosting fground grip the sides and lift it up out of the ground.
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try ductwork.
Did a 16 inch diameter pier that was in the water about 4 foot for several days, pumped it out for the inspector and to pour.
I have always worried about using metal or (especially) plastic culvert due to the corragations. Seems like frost would have a better grip on the pier and could uplift it.
Here's those PVC's that were menitoned in FHB
http://www.redifooting.com/
That's not the same that we use. There must be several kinds out there on the m,arket.
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Expiremented on my deck,using black plastic culvert pipe, after weighing all of the outher options. Set culvert pipe as deep as possible, dropped post into it, on top of a piece of cap block. No cement . Pipe moves up and down can't grab post. Deck has never moved , pipe has. Northeast vermont , deep frost!
Are you saying that the tube is hollow and the post is just set inside? How do you prevent the cold from getting down in the tube? or water?
Like so...
do it right and it's a install and forget about experience...
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Hi Jim,
In this area, you will usually hit ledge, at 3-5 feet. We usually dig as far as we can (short of blasting) so the post are on rock, the tube is around them, the soil above the ledge is all that should move. Iif you ask ten contactors the same question , you will get ten different way's to address the problem. What works in this area may not work in all areas.
Northeastvt
Got it - thanks guys
I'm in SE VT. Hello NE - they say that's real Vt up there.
Also wouldn't recommend corrugated anything, for frost heaving fears. I've used PVC pipe as an alternative to the weak-when-wet cardboard tubes. Seemed to hold up well, before and after the pour. A great thing about the cardboard tubes is you can tear them away when cured, and you don't have to look at the now useless form. Turquoise pipe is a little more eyecatching. Unless you're into that sort of thing...
Watersprite,
You have got more of the "Winter Weather" than we have this year..
I used the ribbed culvert pipe, but it's not in contact with the post, so if it moves when the frost grabs it, the post is inside and can't move it Was told that using cement pyromids just below grade may work well , but considering the frost is 4-6' deep, didn't think this would help much.
Northeastvt
Have used the "bigfoot" bases a lot around here. They seem to perform well. Have also NOT used them and also works out well. Just dig deep enough... (oops, ellipsis) about 4' in our neck of the big woods.
Question for you: You say your PT post is nestled inside the galvy pipe - as a frost protecting sleeve. What keeps the cold from diving right down that open pipe and freezing the base of that post and jacking 'er up? Are you backfilled with crushed stone or what?
Watersprite,
Not galv, it's black plastic. But that is the one thing i was awake at night thinking about.... What if.... I couldn't imagine that a 10" hole 5' deep could have that much of an effect that far down. And they are normally covered with snow(normally!!!!). But not this year, i will have to wait and see what happens. Unless you send some snow up here!!
Northeastvt
Ya know what? You can have every lick of snow we have, if it'll help your frostproofing. I mostly lie awake at night wondering why I live here. 15 years of working outside (often framing) in February has soured me on the charms of that soft blanket of white. And I don't ski - don't even start!
Time to trade in the wafflehead for a tack hammer I guess, and become a real carpenter. They say it's warmer inside the house.
another combination footer and tube - all plastic
http://www.foottube.com/
You can get non-corrugated PVC pipe in large sizes at supply houses.
Big PVC pipe's gotta be very expensive to use as a form, wouldn't it be?
hit the big commercial construction sites.. they toss big PVC pipe pieces away all the time...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
I used to see a lot of footings poured into clay drain pipe, with the bell of the pipe down.
I suppose you can't find those anymore, though.
This is advertised in FHB:
http://www.redifooting.com/
Regards,
Dennis
Why don't you spray them with varnish and keep them dry until ready to pour. Don't set them til the truck is on the way!
Here in the PNW, most of the logging and timber companies install black plastic culverts that are smooth on the inside and ribbed on the outside. They come in a variety of sizes starting at about 8" I.D. X 20' and up and will support a fully loaded log truck or lowboy with D-8 aboard with only a couple of feet of compacted fill over them.
4 or 5 years ago I was building a house that required a bunch of 12" sonotubes; some of them 12' tall atop a footing. The cardboard tubes were really spendy at the time, so I tried the culverts, which were about the same price.
I immediately liked them because they were easy to attach braces to, were weatherproof and took the wet concrete without a problem. It was a snap to cut them to length with a 4 pt. handsaw.
Since then , they're all I use. The short remnants I rip lengthwise, strap them with long plastic tie-wraps, pour the mud and, when it's set, cut the wraps, remove the tubes (leaving a nice smooth finish on the column) and save the tube section for reuse.
I tried to use the "big black plastic things last summer". The ones I got were referred to as "bigfoots". Don't know the actual name.
Seem nice to work with because the bulge at the bottom automatically took care of the shape of the bottom of the footing. The building inspector asked for a bulge at the bottom to help protect the footings from heaving in the frost (Canada - 4' frost line).
I ended up taking them back since my intention was to use an auger to dig the holes (which I did). Then I used a post hole digger to carve out the bottoms and make them wider.
To use the bigfoot forms I would have needed really wide holes which may not be a big issue for you if you have a large quantity of labourers or excavation equipment working for you. Not in my case however.Last year I didn't know what any of this stuff meant.
The ones I use don't have bell ends....they're straight and I can pick up a 12" X 20 footer and slide it onto my pick-up rack.
The bell-end culverts I'm familiar with are made of concrete and come in 42" lengths.
I once laid a dozen of them in a gulley for a driveway I was building. The 12" weighed 300 lbs apiece and it was a task to say the least.
we have a fiberglass pipe co. here. they have 2nds that the sell-10-12 inch run about a 1.00ft, might see if someone up that way makes pipe and see if they have any rejects. larry
hand me the chainsaw, i need to trim the casing just a hair.