imjustdave
Well-known member
Excavator is on tracks and has less PSI then you walking on it, yes the entire mass helps but its not like a compactor. Also your dirt is ... unknown as of yet.
Glad you have an soil engineer taking a look.
I agree with LLWillysfan on the sono tubes, I never used such a thing in 5+ years of concrete work, thicken edges, 6" slab, lots of rebar, pier pads ETC but never once did we buy sonotube to go down to undisturbed soil... we dug to it and had the footer there. In your example I don't recall an engineer designing a monolithic pour like this, it would be upside down T footer, then fill on the outside wall side and engineered backfill to make level than floor installed. Footer supports the building and the engineered fill supports the car inside.
Also how big are these sono tubes? Any rebar? Is there going to be a beam or something resting on top in this area? are they on the perimeter or somewhere in the center of the floor?
What does your lift need? and or call out for.
Overall I'm glad you have called out the builder and having things looked at. The thing that I don't understand is someone who sees plans every day won't use that info on a job without plans, yeah I get sometimes they are overbearing but it's the foundation of the building as a contractor you need to try and do right by the customer, VS save every penny you can on shortcuts.
After a year or 2 I pretty much knew what the engineer wanted to see, the few exceptions were Fire Station floor, hotel elevator shaft, and the pool. Made it really easy to bida, install, and pass inspection with ETC, it wasn't rocket science to mars and back where it was all theoretical science.
