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ED WITZKE’S 101 BASIC SOILS/FOUNDATION COURSE

Adult education course study of soils 101 as taught by Ed Witzke at the University Common Sense and Practical Experience.  Ed Witzke, professor of rotten buildings.com, “Handy man to the Stars”, to the Who’s Who in Canada and “Doctor Death” to dead buildings is teaching a soils science course from a child’s sand box.

Class is now in session, so pay attention please.  This subject is very easy to understand by using common sense.

Things all my students must know about before purchasing property anywhere in the world. 

1. Always, always check and know your soils before you buy any real estate in the world.  What is the history of the area?

2. Always know the exact location of all your property lines.

3. Obtain the official community development plan of the area.  Including topography plans of the area and/or aerial photos.

4. Soil settlement problems constitute some of the most severe, disastrous, costly insurance, legal and personal claims, along with lots of problems and challenges.  To avoid some of these challenges, visit city/municipal or regional district authorities.  Talk with or hire experienced geotechnical engineers, look at soil, forestry, agriculture, climate maps, and talk with neighbors.  Goggle search soil mechanics.

5. Be extra careful with silts, granular soils, bedrock, peat, top soil, soft swelling, clays, fill, liquefiable sands, soft soils, and loess. 

6. Study the topography carefully around your prospective purchase.  Remember that rain water above ground causes rusted, rotten out buildings.  Water below ground causes slides, and floods.  Both elements account for most buildings problems.  Again, Ed Witzke’s theory and critical path of no return applies:  “you do not want the raindrop to stick, pond, and puddle above or below ground”.

7. Never ever buy any land anywhere without doing all of the above. 

Observations of soil features, qualities, effects as seen in a child’s sand box. 

1. All soils will fail and become unstable if not property maintained.

2. Soils are affected by air and ground temperatures as well as amounts of precipitation.

3. Soils are both plastic and elastic and change in volume.

4. All soils have behavior subject to geological origin and climate.

5. Water is pushed and pulled through the soil by seepage, gravity, and pressure differences and capillarity actions. 

6. Soils must withstand imposed loads, stress and resistance.

7. There are many different categories, mixtures, elements, classifications and types of soils.

8. Soils vary in structure, color, texture, strength, grain-size, eccentricity, consistency, weight volume, friction, bulk, density, permeability, percolation, moisture content, hydraulics, compressibility, consolidation, shear, tension, cohesion, static loads, settlement, compaction, swelling, shrinking, absorption, at ground water conditions, surface water levels, compatibility, seepage, and live and dead loads placed on them.

9. Soil is complex biochemical material subject to hydraulics, mechanics, pressures, stresses, strains, and slip factors, bearing capabilities, lateral forces and displacement, acidity, salinity, mineral content, over compaction and under compaction.

10. Unsuitable soil like fill placed on/in a sloped embankment, hill, and cliff or drenched with rain, gravitational seepage forces, snow, wind, heat and/or under cutting agencies like streams, rivers, lakes, or oceans will act on the soil to flatten and lengthen its surface.  It’s a known fact that slides occur on slopes steeper than 20 degrees.

“Every structure is supported by soil and a foundation.  It is the behavior and the physical properties of earth underlying the structure that provides the ultimate support and stability of that structure.  If one or the other is no good, you’ve good problems.  Both have to perform and behave properly under all types of climatic conditions, both above ground and hydrostatic conditions and below ground, for the lifetime of that structure”. 

“Soil is like the air we breathe.  Most of the time little attention is paid, but once something goes wrong, everybody runs to their lawyers”  Ed Witzke – media quote

My mother Pauline Witzke and father Wilhelm Waldemar Witzke, who designed many houses would always say “your footings and foundations for your structures are only as good as the supporting soils under and around them.  Poor soils, poor structure”.  My parents would also always say “know your soils before you build.  Build your foundation on your soils well; reinforce them well to withstand any and all uncertainties”.

SO WHAT TO DO? 

1. Don’t buy land with problem soils.  Stay clear away from hills, embankments, and cliffs steeper than 20 degrees.  Carefully study soils maps.

2. Know where the water table and ground water table is during all four seasons of the year. Talk to soil engineers that use monitoring wells. 

3. Remove water from soil by providing good drainage above and below ground.

4. Rely on extensive root vegetation to hold soil in place.

5. Prevent softening of soil by removing surface water before it has time to penetrate.

6. Remove/replace problem soils.

7. Properly design for soil stability.

8. Soils can be altered by using different fills, or fertilizers.

THINGS TO DO

1. Have a pH test done on the soil.  If the pH is too high or too low and the fertilizers won’t help because the nutrients get all locked up in chemical forms, the plants can’t get in.

2. When purchasing bare land, always have a perculation test done by experienced drain-field evaluators.

3. Do environmental site assessments and soil bulk density sampling?  Any contaminated soils?

By observing sand in a child’s sand box or on a beach as our classroom theme is, there is no reason in the world that buildings should be sliding down mountain slopes, embankments, or hills.  Where is the common sense?

How important is soil structure you ask?  “The proper preparation of the soils comes first before the foundation is poured and the building is built” Ed Witzke – media quote

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