Well, the driveway is in! Hooray! And the pad for the house is in too!
Unfortunately… I’m not allowed to put my home on the rock pad that was put down on Thursday. My Contractor began the work on it because my neighbor was able to do it and the home is coming in about 2 weeks! He wanted a place to put it, as did I… But, a very big but, due to the school going in across the street 10 years ago there was a Geotechnical test done prior to our minor subdivision. From those results the county realized that the area out there is … a swamp. It just looks like there is dirt and things to build on.
The planning dept had a major oversight on my neighbor and required almost nothing from them for their manufactured home. They caught everything on my permit, and are now ensuring that I follow the rules to a ‘T’. Even had to edit my home elevations to show a “lighted address” on it. Oh and I needed to give them a front yard landscaping.
I pieced together this design on my own in about an hour!
I thought I was moving to 5 acres where I would have some freedom!
Anyway those two things weren’t a big deal. I needed a geotechnical report for my home, even though it sits on top of the ground and doesn’t dig in to the soil at all.
Luckily, my neighbor had one done for their “Main home”. They are going to build a home while living in the manufactured one that is on a rock pad. I contacted their geotechnical engineer and asked if he could use that report for my home. Since I was a direct neighbor for $750 he would oblige. However, somehow I missed a very important caveat to his recommendation. I cannot use a standard rock-pad foundation.
Unfortunately, the timing of this was awful. I didn’t get it to my general contractor until the day the driveway and pad were being put down. Unless something crazy happens, I cannot use that rockpad. I need a “waffle mat” type foundation. I found a local guy (925 area code) that sells them so I will reach out to him on Monday.
The reason for this is that they found significant factors of liquefaction in the ground when testing for the school across the street. Here is a video on liquefaction. It is entirely likely that if there were an earthquake and it hit the ground water just right… there could be major damage to my home or it could sink into the ground. At least that’s what my soils report (that I don’t yet have) would tell me. Essentially the soil out there has no strength to hold things.
A more detailed video on soil mechanics (Practical Engineering is one of my favorite Youtubers).
In summary… Read all the notices you get that are out of the ordinary when buying a home. Planning departments are inconsistent. I lost money in my rock pad for my home. Hopefully my family will be safer because of this silliness. Also, I’ll keep you posted on the cost of the wafflemat. Costs are hard to find. I’m hoping less than $10,000. I hope I’m right!
that drawing looks beautiful