Brick is classified as a heavy building material, so you need to approach the construction of the foundation for such a house very responsibly. Construction of cottages in Moscow usually involves the construction of strip foundations made of monolithic reinforced concrete or foundation concrete blocks.
In places with a high level of groundwater, on heaving and shifting soils, a slab (floating) foundation is installed. It can also be either monolithic or prefabricated. The cost of a brick house on a slab foundation is higher than on a strip foundation.
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Strip foundation.
A strip foundation is erected under all the load-bearing walls of the house: external and internal. To construct it, a trench is dug in advance, no less than the freezing depth. If a basement is planned under the house, a pit is dug. The bottom of the trench (pit) is rammed. If the soil is greasy, a sand cushion is made under the foundation, which is also rammed.
For a monolithic foundation, formwork is installed on the bottom of the trench, reinforcement is mounted and concrete mixture is poured. When constructing rubble concrete foundations, rubble stone is laid in layers together with reinforcement and poured with sand and cement mortar in layers of 15-20 cm.
The formwork is removed after 3-4 weeks. If the soil is dense, the part of the foundation located in the ground can be poured without formwork between the walls of the trench.
The device of a prefabricated foundation allows you to speed up the process, since you practically do not need to wait for the solution to set. For the installation of foundation blocks, lifting equipment is needed. After each row of blocks, a row of reinforcement is laid.
The foundation walls that are in contact with the ground are waterproofed with roll materials using liquid bitumen mastic to seal the seams. The upper surface of the foundation, on which the wall will stand, is also waterproofed.
Slab foundation.
It is arranged under the entire area of the future house. This requires more concrete, metal, waterproofing materials, which makes the cost of a brick house somewhat more expensive. But if the soil is very mobile, you have to incur additional costs.
First, a pit is dug and filled with a sand and gravel mixture with ramming. When installing a regular slab, immediately after this, reinforcement is installed, formwork along the perimeter, and concrete mixture is poured. A more modern option, the Swedish slab, involves first laying special polystyrene foam for thermal insulation. There, a whole system of polystyrene profiles was invented that formed something like a large shallow trough, on the bottom of which waterproofing was laid. The seams are sealed with cold bitumen mastic. I think it is clear why they do not use heat.
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Then a layer of polystyrene foam is laid again, and only after that the reinforcement is mounted and the concrete mixture is poured. Sometimes, before pouring the concrete, underfloor heating pipes are installed. Warm floors.
What can I say? You can’t build a high base this way. And that means that snowdrifts will cover your porch and then you’ll have to climb through the window to clear the door. And it’s better not to buy plots of land on swamps.
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