Piling for landed house

[Kellhound 4]

 

 

The owner of the house I'm interested in said that they did piling for the house when it was built in the mid-90s and claimed that this was much more stable than most other houses which usually did "just a concrete foundation". I'm just wondering as to how true is this?

[snoozee 98]

they did piling because they need to due to soil conditions.

my house did footings and i've seen others who did raft foundations. so ultimately what kind of foundation is done is based on the existing soil conditions and what the PE decides on based on the soil investigation report. so it does not mean that any houses which are done using footings or raft foundations are less stable than houses which uses piled foundation

[IceEyez 4]

5 hours ago, Kellhound said:

 

 

The owner of the house I'm interested in said that they did piling for the house when it was built in the mid-90s and claimed that this was much more stable than most other houses which usually did "just a concrete foundation". I'm just wondering as to how true is this?

haha the owner is trying to upsell you his house and foundation 🤣.

Foundation design is done based on the soil condition and has to go through BCA checking and approval. And BCA has a high safety factor for stuff, so its not anyhow up to the engineer to decide. Nobody will go spend unnecessary on piling if it is not required.

[Leo Parker 0]

This is not true because concrete is the best material for foundations. It has a service life of about 30 years and doesn't require any maintenance effort. I try to use concrete wherever I can. Last month I contacted https://www.concreteservicesdenver.com/ to have them do a concrete parking lot for me. I read online that such parking lots can last 50 years. The most important thing is to let the concrete cure completely before you drive over it.

[leechaorui 2]

On 2/25/2021 at 2:08 PM, Kellhound said:

 

 

The owner of the house I'm interested in said that they did piling for the house when it was built in the mid-90s and claimed that this was much more stable than most other houses which usually did "just a concrete foundation". I'm just wondering as to how true is this?

Certainly the owner of the house has spent more on rebuilding given that piling can be expensive especially when micro piling is used.  Some engineers have opined that Singapore's construction safety standard is very high and for most small landed properties construction, piling is not really needed.  However, with the high engineering standards, many of these cases that do not require piling also end up with piling being used, with likely even higher safety requirements.  The piling cost in the 1990s shouldn't be too high and if the owner wishes to charge a bit of premium in the selling price for having used piling to construct his house, I feel it should be accepable.