Concrete raft foundations
Summary: Concrete raft foundations and how to make the decision to use a raft for your footing
Raft Foundations:
Because of the speed and volume of houses required after the second world war, the raft foundation was widely used. The raft foundation was cheaper, easier to install and most importantly, did not require as much excavation as the usual strip foundations.
When the Building Regulations were introduced in 1965 there were no generic rules for raft foundations as there were for strip foundations. This meant that to use a raft foundation, it had to be designed and approved by Building Control. This made the entire operation much more difficult and time consuming so raft foundations became less widely used almost overnight.
Rafts are most often used these days when the strata is unstable or (because of this) a normal strip foundation would cover more than 50% of the ground area beneath the building. There are also situations (usually in areas where mining has occurred) where there may be areas of movement in the strata.
A raft foundation spreads the weight of the building over the whole ground floor area of that building. The raft is laid on a hardcore, or scalping bed and usually thickened at the edges, especially in very poor ground. Rafts are most suitable when the ground is of good load bearing capacity and little work is required to get a solid foundation.
All project content written and produced by Mike Edwards
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