Site Investigation - Select a foundation from tables, or to design a foundation.

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To select a foundation from tables, or to design a foundation, it is necessary to calculate the loads on the foundation and determine the nature of the subsoil, its bearing capacity, its likely behaviour under seasonal and ground water level changes and the possibility of ground movement. Where the nature of the subsoil is known from geological surveys, adjacent building work or trial pits or borings and the loads on foundations are small, as for single domestic buildings, it is generally sufficient to excavate for foundations and confirm, from the exposed subsoil in the trenches, that the soil is as anticipated.

Under strip and pad foundations there is a significant pressure on the subsoil below the foundations to a depth and breadth of about one-and-a-half-times the width of the foundation. If there were, in this area below the foundation, a soil with a bearing capacity less than that below the foundation, then appreciable settlement of the foundation might occur and damage the building. It is important, therefore, to know or ascertain the nature of the subsoil both at the level of the foundation and for some depth below.

Where the nature of the subsoil is uncertain or there is a possibility of ground movement or a need to confirm information on subsoils, it is wise to explore the subsoil over the whole of the site of the building.

As a first step it is usual to collect information on soil and subsoil conditions from the County and Local Authority, whose local knowledge from maps, geological surveys, aerial photography and works for buildings and services adjacent to the site may in itself give an adequate guide to subsoil conditions. In addition geological maps from the British Geological Survey, information from local geological societies, Ordnance Survey maps, mining and river and coastal information may be useful.

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