A Succinct Guide to Soil Testing Before the Construction of Your Custom Home Build

Although getting the opportunity to construct your forever home is a dream come true for many, it is also a massive investment. And before you get to the point of inhabiting the house, you will have to make a host of decisions that will affect the final structure. One of the pre-construction stages that you will have to engage in is soil testing.

A mistake some people make is thinking they can skip the soil testing since it will inflate their construction costs, but the reality of the matter is overlooking this stage can deem your house unsafe for occupancy. So why is it so important? To help you understand this process a bit clearer, keep reading the following succinct guide to soil testing before the construction of your custom home build.

What does soil testing entail?

As the name implies, soil testing involves taking samples from your lot for analysis. This testing is carried out to establish the reactivity of the soil on your lot. Reactivity refers to the way the soil particle will shift or expand, and this information is critical since it will determine how well the soil will perform when it comes to supporting the foundation of your new home build.

Hence, the geotechnical engineer will carry out a thorough analysis of the soil and then classify it. The results are then handed to the structural engineer of your construction project, who will then use this information for the structural design of the residential property.

What mistakes should you avoid when carrying out soil testing for your custom home build?

As the future owner of the custom home build, you have complete control over the decisions made during pre-construction. Therefore, you must be aware of how best to go about the soil testing so that you do not make mistakes that will cost you down the road. A couple of the mistakes that you should avoid when carrying out soil testing include:

• Only taking one sample: Undoubtedly, the biggest blunder that many individuals make during soil testing is limiting the geotechnical engineer's samples to a singular one! This is usually done under the guise that the entire lot has the same type of soil, but this is grossly untrue. Multiple samples are required to have a comprehensive idea of the soil composition across the entire lot.
• Putting off the design of the house: The main aim of soil testing is to give you and your contractors insight into the lot's condition so that you know how best to go about the construction of the custom home build. Thus, without any designs available, the structural engineer will not know how to tackle potential issues. It is critical to have these designs in place so that the geotechnical engineer will know which parts of the lot will be in use, the degree of foundational support required for the structure and so on.