AllistonGT
Well-known member
Alliston is 160 sq/ft. 15ft high, no permit.
My spring project. 10x12
Thinking helical piles.
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Enough of COVID...what are you doing to the house?
- Thread starter mimico_polak
- Start date
My spring project. 10x12
Thinking helical piles.
Be very careful with their literature. While helical piles are a real thing and can work, those marketed to consumers suck donkey balls. I thought about using them for a deck a few years ago. While the load rating per pile seemed great, with some digging, that assumed the piles were driven to contact bedrock (the load rating was the buckling strength of the shaft, not the load that the soil beneath the helix could support). Who tf uses helical piles to bedrock that is only 4' down? When installed as a typical person would, I needed 10x the helical piles as conventional. Load rating was down an order of magnitude and each pile was only good for a few hundred pounds. Awe hell no.
Commercial grade helical piles have a much larger helix (larger footprint spreading the load) and are driven with hydraulics. There is a correlation between hydraulic pressure and load bearing so they can confidently say that the piles as installed will meet your needs.
Why 10x12? If you are custom building it, you aren't locked into common sizes and incremental cost is low compared the the additional space gained.
AllistonGT
Well-known member
Custom building it. The helical piles wont be the ones you buy from big box stores. It's the one part of the build I'll write the cheque for someone else to do. I haven't got a quote yet, so maybe that will change my mind. Concrete pad would be great but expensive. I won't do just blocks on the ground. Thats not me. I go overkill on everything.
For my deck I ended up using post holes plus. I couldn't get a machine in so hand digging was required. I had to supply sono-tubes and mark locations. They dug, supplied and placed concrete. I think I used the smallest size of 10" sonotube (nominal 10, I think 9 with a tape). Deck had seven footings and it was about $100 a hole (4' deep obviously). It would have been much cheaper if they could use the machine. They mixed the concrete much wetter than I would have but it had no noticeable degredation over the five years I owned the house. Much faster and easier on my back than personally digging all those holes and humping all that concrete.
For my 10x12 I put in sonotubes, filled with concrete with beefy adjustable joist supports on top. Put a thick plywood floor over the joists and the shed went up on that. I priced out a concrete pad and I came ahead by buying a concrete mixer and doing it myself. I was going to adjust the joist supports after the first season in case I hadn’t gone deep enough with the sonotubes and there was some shifting but nothing has needed adjusting at all.
AllistonGT
Well-known member
Did my deck the same way. Dug and did the concrete myself. It's a mess and have to remove all that dirt from the site. Thats the thing I want to avoid.
Wow that looks like an awesome design! Mississauga has height limits as well as square footage limits so a permit would 100% be required.
I agree, it looks nice (and he draws well). I know my limitations and will hand sketch a rough design but go into a model once I care about details.
Here is the mushroom that never got built. Not the prettiest design but the goal was maximum envelope in compliance. Technically the loft made it not in compliance but as the ladder wouldn't live in place the argument was it was architectural. Plywood gussets at the break kept the loft space reasonably open. Finish was going to be board and batten.
EDIT:
Above was modelled in Fusion360.
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I have used helical piles for many years, never a single issue post install. At my current home my deck is on six (15 years now) and my 12X9 shed (10 year+) is on four. Zero issues and way cheaper.
The only complaint I have with them is they get hard to twist when they get deep. Mostly an issue if you are on the inside of a corner and only have 90° of swing (like in a lot corner). When installed correctly they work very well.
The only complaint I have with them is they get hard to twist when they get deep. Mostly an issue if you are on the inside of a corner and only have 90° of swing (like in a lot corner). When installed correctly they work very well.
I'll be honest I never heard / used helical piles...but it seems like a good idea without the need to drill foundation holes.
Could be used for fence posts as well as it would eliminate the need to the holes, concrete, and worrying about rotting of the posts in the soil.
Unless I'm missing something.
Could be used for fence posts as well as it would eliminate the need to the holes, concrete, and worrying about rotting of the posts in the soil.
Unless I'm missing something.
The normal ones are for vertical loads. A fence post puts a huge amount of torsion at ground level. Now, they could make one that extended above the ground to deal with that. I have no idea if they do.
Would not be my choice for a fence, side loads and they can be difficult to get 100% dead straight (can't see that under a deck), easier to fudge that with concrete.
sburns
Well-known member
Good sketches better them most people's drawings.
25+ years as an Industrial Designer. Started out on a drafting board with a pencil........Good sketches better them most people's drawings.
sburns
Well-known member
I thought there was a artistic background there, no one usually draws humans forms like that.
I git a bunch of caulk on clearance and a display power gun for $20. That will take care of any gaps quick.
On another note some prices are still wack. Pvc baseboard is 3x compared to US at HD. Transition strips are also 2x-3x.
Does that actually make caulking easier/tidier? I’ve been looking at these for a while now but couldn’t justify the cost over old faithful manual guns.
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