Plain answers on helical piles and new foundations in Colorado, from frost depth and swelling clay to codes, costs and what an engineer puts on the drawings. Looking for our earlier posts? They are on Our Articles.
A grade beam is a reinforced concrete beam that spans between piers or piles instead of sitting on the soil. On Colorado clay, that's the point. Here's how pier-and-grade-beam foundations work and how one gets built.
Read More »In Colorado, "caisson" usually means a drilled concrete pier under a grade beam, the standard answer to swelling clay for decades. Here is how one gets built, what goes wrong, and when helical piles do the same job.
Read More »A post and pier foundation holds a building up on isolated supports instead of a continuous wall. The pier is the part that decides how it performs. Here's the whole system, and how concrete and helical piers compare.
Read More »A detached garage can sit on a thickened-edge slab, a frost wall or helical piles under a grade beam. Here is how each one behaves on Front Range clay and what Denver's code says about depth.
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