Difference between Residential and Commercial Foundation Piering or Foundation Piles.
Essentially the difference between residential and commercial foundation piering is due to the amount of loading or weight, both live and dead load, attributable to structure being supported.
Differences may include the wall thickness of the steel in push pier pipe. Lighter weight construction, residential wood frame and single and two story masonry, generally only require .125” wall thickness of the steel piering pipe. Heavier construction weights, multi-story steel and tilt-up concrete structures, often require thicker wall pipe, usually .25” thick steel.
Spacing of the plate and pier can differ dramatically between residential and commercial construction. Calculations of load requirements for single story wood frame residential construction may yield a pier design placement spacing of eight feet or more on center. The heavier loads of commercial construction may require not only heavier duty plates and pipes but also a significantly closer spacing of the pier or pile locations, sometimes a frequency of twenty four inches on center is required.
A third factor that may vary according to the load a pier is supporting is the quantity and diameter of anchor bolts attaching the pier plate to the concrete foundation. Lighter residential construction may only require eight, four on each side of the sleeve, ‘red head’ type expansion bolts per plate. Commercial building loads may require as many as twenty bolt connectors to transfer the load from the foundation to the pier and to resist shear forces (those that would snap the bolt).
Concrete Lifting Solutions offers a full range technical support to both the residential and commercial property owner to accurately and economically design a solution for supporting an existing or new foundation system.
