concrete piers

House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

floatr

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2013
Messages
46
Reaction score
2
How long after pouring the concrete piers is ideal to set the deck on them?
I have a freestanding low deck an holes are 2 ft deep w 3 inches stone in the sono tubes...is in Tn
Also about 3 days after pourng we had 4 days of off an on rain -will that rain help it in early curing process an is it best I covered them when it rained .?
 
-is for drainage
Does the days of rain strengthen it better than if it were several dry days and dried out faster-.i know some wet it down the 1st 48hrs?
 
Keeping a slab wet is about slabs drying out too fast. A tube full of concrete in a rain storm may be effected for the top inch and same for to hot and drying out to fast.
We put concrete in footing in all weather and the next day build the forms and some times and next day often we are filling those forms sometimes 10 ft high, always inspected by both city and engineers, the only times anyone worries about that concrete is in freezing temps it has to be covered to keep the heat in.
The idea of digging down for your peir is to get to solid undisturbed soil, gravel is sometimes installed to level a hole or to fill and stiffin a muddy soil. I have seen a nateral spring in a foundation hole, then extra drainage has to be considered and gravel will be installed but then the water has to have someplace to go. But in all those cases the gravel has to be compacted so it is better than undisturbed.
When you leave a space under a peir for water to gather and if it ever does freeze that deep then there will be a problem.
 
With our weather i doubt that will be a issue.It was properly distributed as required here and recommended by inspectors.drainage gravel.

Is it a good idea to add some to sides close to sides so water will slope away or maybe use soil ?
 
It's always a good idea to slope landscaping away from structure.
The ony prtoblem I have ever seen with concrete post was when we built a house near the river and the soil was terrible according to the geo engineer so the layed down gravel under the whole house and called for huge footing under the house and posts. Two posts were holding up the from porch and roof. With the drainage system around the house there was less and less water in the soil under the house. The whole house sank about 6" but the posts did not, we were back there 2 times taking inches off the hight of the posts. The gravel under the post footings did nothing for drainage, they should have added perimeter drain around the posts when the did the house.
So next time someone tells you to put gravel down there, remind them that drainage goes some where and gravel in a hole only creates a puddle.
 
My piers are 5 inches above ground and am using the in concrete post SUPPORTS== for beams to go in as in pic..not a 4 by4...so many more speak to use it (pic has just 2 examples of the MANY)than not to with gravel.
It can depend on soil type an location, weather ,depth ,etc.also..shadowbox fence i had done with same set up is still secure after 25 yrs

IMAG0249.jpg

gravel pic 1.jpg

gravel pic.jpg
 
Last edited:
Yes I buy the compacting for support ans to infill the loose dirt at the bottom of the hole, samples say nothing about drainage.;)
 
Back
Top