I've recently acquired some land and it's got a lot of shit on it, among that shit is a 20ish by 30ish slab. Slab is about 40 years old and the original house burnt like 20 years ago. Over the width of the slab I've measured a 3.5 inch slope and it's got a few cracks here and there. Would it be easier to lay new slab on top to build a house on or to build a cinder block crawl space with a subfloor?
Going to be building a little 16x16 2 story cabin
Pic is a trailer right next to the slab that mysteriously caught fire
>>968199
Existing slab sounds fucked. How deep do you have to go down in that area? Like, cause of frost heave and shit.
>>968199
yeah what country are you even in? canada holds many frost problems and you would not want to build on an old burnt foundation as the age and heat will have caused a few problems
>>968199
I'd just excavate the old foundation. You could also crush it into aggregate to use in a new foundation but that's probably even more work.
If you were going to just tow a different trailer on the lot or build a shotgun shack hunting cabin deal on pylons the existing foundation would be a good thing but if you're building a two story structure it's a liability.
>>968199
+1 for new slab over the old one. just clear all the shit off. the problem with cinder blocks as silts is they tend to move around with any sort of earth shifting. plus if you planned on putting them over the slab existing you'd have to anchor them down anyway.. i'd say dig the edges of the slab find out how thick they are. if they've got proper footings along the outside. then like 3/4" of new concrete slab on top of the old one to level everything out will do you a solid. just remember to plan your building over the existing footings.
if your building is smaller. its easy, use a sledge hammer and break up the existing parts of the old foundation where you need a new footing, no need to tear up the whole thing, just breakout like 16x16" hole, and dig like 2 feet down, pour a layer of gravel about 10 inches thick and pack down tightly, its kinda better to use pea gravel, cause its easier to hand pack, but if you use old rubble or cheap gravel, just do 2 inches at a time and pack as you go. the rest of the hole can be filled with concrete. you can use a concrete forming tube. or just fill the hole [id just fill the damn hole, more concrete but concretes pretty cheap desu.] up to you.
>>968297
instead of deleting this post. I meant 3 or 4 inches, not three fourth of an inch. I realized that now I kinda goofed.
Location is Arkansas, roughly 16 inches for slab depth around here, I'll be checking depth Sunday. I'll also come back with some more in depth measurements and more pics.
>>968312
Probably be cheaper to fix it but honestly if you tore it out yourself and did that labor new would be similar
>>968312
Where in AR are you? North or south? Central? I'd take it somewhere either near Hot Springs, that's where most people seem to like to set up.
>>968199
are you building a shack or a real house?
you wouldn't build a house on a shitty foundation would you?
If that were me, Id rent some cats or something and rip up all of that old slab and pour new.
Seriously, if you are going to build a house don't cut corners.
>>968357
A small real house, 2x6 walls, and 2x8 or 10 floors, single pitch roof.
What about knocking out some holes and doing some 4 foot tall piers out of sonotube, 16 inch down into the existing slab?
>>968567
Im not a contractor, just had some construction classes that I dont remember shit from.
How big is this shack, 20 ft x 10 ft?
If its a piece of shit that is not sellable to anyone besides another redneck then I wouldn't worry about it. If its some 4 bedroom house and you use this slab for the foundation then Ill probably call you an idiot.
>>968567
With doing anything on piers. The key is the 1/3rd rule. So you want four feet above ground. So 4*12=48 now 48*.33=15.84 so indeed 16 inches down will be good enough. As I said before though. Make sure you put gravel down too. It helps with draining and won't cause the concrete to turn mushy over time.
>>968590
Single bed, just over 500 sqft. Small house
>>968625
go for it, make it shine with all of its backwoods glory
>>968199
Use existing slab as garage or shop / storage.
Here's another pic of the slab. I didn't get to dig it to see how far down it goes this weekend because we were moving our last bit of shit out.
So, so far the consensus is destroy old slab and pour new slab or pour new slab on top of old slab.
As far as foundation goes, what other alternative methods are there?
I've looked into pier and beam and stilts, as well as using blocks to make a crawl space.
>>969082
Looks overkill for a 500 sq ft house. Jackhammer out those cracks, kill all the weeds and grade it properly and it'll be fine.
>>969111
How far would I need to Jack them? I'm guessing that since there are things growing through it, all the way
