Using Fill When Preparing Your Building Pad

Oct. 24, 2019 ⋅ Categories: Industry News

It is important to remember that when you are preparing your building site for your pole building, using fill may result in extra construction costs if not done well and here is why.

Most permitting jurisdictions will require the post holes for your pole building to be dug into native, undisturbed soil to the depth that the engineer calls out on the building plans – usually 4′ or deeper. If you will be using fill to prepare your site, this means that the post hole will need be dug through the fill first, then into native soil to the depth the engineer specifies. This requires additional labor and machinery and extra length posts – adding some costs to your building project.

When preparing your building site, you need to keep this in mind. When there is 18″ of more of fill dirt it is usually more cost effective to conduct a compaction test at the time your building site is prepared. The soil strength is tested and the results are provided to us for our engineer to review. If the soil strength is deemed adequate by the engineer, it is not necessary to dig into native soil – the fill itself will suffice.

There are many companies that will conduct this testing and it needs to be done at the same time you prepare your site for your PermaBilt® pole building.

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Using Fill When Preparing Your Building Pad

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