How to make a foundation for a bath. The foundation for a bath with your own hands. Video - non-removable Epps formwork for the strip foundation

Basically, the foundation for the bath is no different from the foundation for any other structure. At the preparatory stage of building the foundation for the bath, first of all, it is necessary to draw up its project.

In order to determine the design of the foundation for the bath, it is necessary to understand two main things: the characteristics of the soil on the site and the weight of the future building.

You need to start by calculating the weight of the future bath. Use the table below and calculate what will be total weight buildings.

Then you need to assess the soil at the site. To do this, drill a hole about 2.5 meters deep at the construction site. By drilling, you will understand what the characteristics of the soil under the topsoil are. Each type of soil is capable of withstanding its ultimate loads.

Based on the ultimate load on the type of soil of your site, you need to calculate the area with which it should rest on the ground.

In addition, there are several simple rules, following which you can independently choose the type of foundation for the bath, without resorting to complex calculations.

-if your site has a heaving soil that significantly changes its volume when freezing, then a reasonable solution would be to build a strip foundation, under the base of which there will be a sand cushion.
- if in the soil on your site there is small gravel, sand of coarse fractions or clay - then you can build a strip foundation or limit yourself to pillars.
-if there is a large proportion of fine sand in the soil, any type of foundation can be used.

We carry out preparatory work and mark the construction site

Mark the construction site of the bath and, according to the drawn up project, begin to mark the foundation. To do this, stock up on pegs or U-shaped wooden structures. They are exposed at the corners of the future foundation. In order to be sure of the correct geometry of the constructed rectangle, pull the fishing line or cord along its diagonals. If you have built the inner corners correctly, the diagonals of the rectangle should be equal.

After marking the perimeter of the foundation, proceed to marking the remaining elements. If you are building a strip foundation, then mark the inner contour. Please note that in soils with high heaving, it is advisable to create a backfill of compacted sand around the strip foundation. In this case, the trench for the foundation base will have to be dug wider than the required base width. The very same width of the foundation in the form of a tape should be about 10 centimeters greater than the thickness of the walls of the building.

In the event that you limit yourself to a columnar foundation, then mark the places for placing the pillars. The gaps between them should not exceed 2.5 meters, in addition, the support pillars must be placed at the corners of the structure and at the junction of the internal load-bearing walls.

Please note that if you are going to put a heavy stove in the bath (and what a bath is without it), then the foundation must be laid under its base.

We build a strip foundation for a bath

The strip foundation for the bath is a concrete monolith. In order to build it, it is necessary to create a formwork, inside which the foundation will be poured and subsequently matured.

The height of the formwork for the bathhouse foundation depends on the characteristics of the soil. If it is free-flowing and cannot keep the perpendicularity of the walls, then it will have to be built starting from the very bottom of the trench.
At the bottom of the foundation trench, successively sand and gravel cushions are laid. Each layer of the pillow must be carefully tamped. In the case of high permeability of the soil, a roll of moisture-insulating material, for example, dense polyethylene, can be placed on top of them.

We create the foundation for the bath in the form of pillars

For a light log bath, it is easiest to make a foundation in the form of pillars. This will significantly reduce the construction budget. However, such a foundation is not recommended for construction on light heaving soil, in addition, its design does not provide for the construction of a basement or basement.

At the marked places of the pillars, manually or mechanically drill holes with a diameter according to the selected project and calculations.
At the bottom of these wells, sand and gravel must be laid, spilled with water and thoroughly tamped. To exclude the absorption of moisture from the concrete solution by the soil, put a plastic wrap on the pillow.
Pipes of the corresponding diameter are lowered into the well. Its material, in principle, does not matter: it can be plastic, metal or asbestos cement. After strictly vertical installation of all pipes, the soil around them must be compacted. The top of the pipes is cut to a uniform horizontal level using an appropriate tool.
A power frame is mounted in the pipe, consisting of vertical and horizontal rods. Intersections of rods are tied with wire, clamps or welded.
Fill layer by layer with concrete mortar of the selected strength grade. Each layer must be grafted to expel excess air.
Brick lintels can be laid out between the support posts. Their thickness will be sufficient for half a brick. The lintel can be buried to the same depth in the ground. The height of such a foundation is chosen individually, usually it is about 40 cm. On top of the entire structure, it is coated with bitumen mastic and laid with sheets of roofing material for thermal insulation.

Column foundation for a bath - scheme

Video - the foundation for a bath with your own hands

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The construction of a bath begins with laying the foundation. The entire life of its operation depends on how well it was done. An important role in this is played by the choice of its type. It must not only withstand the main structure of the building, but also perform the functions of waterproofing and thermal insulation.

In order to lay the foundation for a bath with your own hands, you will need to adhere to the technology and perform the work in the correct sequence.

Preparatory work

Before carrying out earthworks, you should choose a place for the construction of a bath. Usually, a site is chosen that is remote from the outbuildings, closer to the reservoir, if there is one, the windows are brought out to the sunny side, and the doors are located in such a part of the building so that from neighboring sites it is not possible to see what is happening in the bath. In this case, the soil must be dense in order to reduce the cost of concrete and reinforcement. The presence of those close to the surface groundwater undesirable, and construction on peat or fine sand is generally excluded.

To find out the required depth of the base, you should contact the surveyors who can give a qualified assessment of the terrain and layers of the earth. But many act differently - they themselves dig a hole and roughly estimate its bearing capacity.

Note! Under the bath, a hole will have to be dug 2/3 of the depth of the foundation under the house, taking into account the sand and crushed stone pillow.

In the selected place, the surface is cleaned from debris and vegetation.
Then the required area is marked with pegs and only after that the foundation pit is dug out. The geometry of the pit depends entirely on the type of foundation chosen, but it is performed along the perimeter of the bath.
The site is marked out starting from one of the corners of the bath. A wooden peg is driven in, and then the length of the structure is counted from it in one direction and the second peg is driven in there. Then the required width of the object is measured at right angles to the future wall from the starting point. At the end, measure the distance to the fourth corner.
A rope is pulled on the pegs along the perimeter for the convenience of excavation.
After that, in accordance with the construction plan, a separate pit is dug at the proposed location of the furnace for pouring the base of the furnace.

Note! Two main types of foundations are installed under the bath: strip and columnar. Both of them are capable of providing a long service life for a bath, but their consumption of building materials is significantly different. To save finances on dense soil, a columnar is erected, and on loose and loose soils, as well as when erecting heavy structures, a belt is used.

The columnar foundation consists of separately dug pillars along the perimeter of the bath, as well as, if necessary, inside the perimeter. The material of the pillars can be selected in accordance with its availability and cost in a particular region of residence. The most common are wooden, brick and monolithic pillars.

Wooden posts. They are the easiest to install, their installation will take the minimum amount of time. Although it will still take some time to shrink.

A dense tree that does not have knots, cracks and other defects, is quite even along its entire length. It is advisable that the outer surface of the logs is not cut off, since otherwise the post will not have natural protection from external influences, and it will deteriorate much faster.

Note! Before using logs for construction, they should be properly dried and then treated with antiseptics and a waterproofing layer.

They are installed at intervals of 1.5-2.5 meters around the perimeter, depending on the size of their section. If this distance is exceeded, additional fasteners will have to be erected at the bottom of the pits so that the strength of the structure is not lost. The optimal diameter is 50-60 cm.

If it is necessary to strengthen the supporting structure, pillars are also installed inside the dedicated area with the same interval.

Note! The depth of the holes for the pillars should exceed the freezing depth by 30-50 cm.

The disadvantages include:

significantly shorter service life, when compared with other materials,
flammability,
tendency to rotting with increased dampness,
susceptibility to damage by insects and rodents (that is why the posts should be impregnated with appropriate protective mixtures, qualitatively, in compliance with the instructions for use).

Monolithic pillars... They are the most durable and durable.

They are able to withstand significant loads, but they are unstable to freezing of the soil, so they must be buried in the same way as wooden ones, and a cushion of sand and gravel, with a thickness of each layer of 20 cm, should be placed on the bottom.High-quality waterproofing is required on the sides. As a form for the monolith, you can use asbestos-cement pipes with a diameter of up to 25 cm, which will solve the problem of installing the formwork and will perfectly cope with the waterproofing function.

Filling method:

A cushion of sand is poured into the drilled well, and then a cushion of gravel.
The pipe is lowered to the very bottom, after which a concrete solution is poured, and the pillar is raised to a certain height, as a result, the solution partially leaves the pipe, and anchorage with the ground is created.
After the concrete has begun to set, the pipe is no longer held, the solution is poured from above in the volume of the poured out and reinforcement is inserted.
The rest of the pillars are similar. The hardening period ranges from several weeks to a month, depending on the conditions environment.

The main disadvantages of this type are its high cost and complexity of installation for people who have no experience in concrete work, as well as the ability to carry out work only at temperatures above + 5 ° C.

Brick... To install a brick columnar foundation, you will need to dig a pit in order to have access to the masonry. At the bottom, under each of the pillars, a sand and gravel cushion is installed. A small concrete layer is poured on top of it, which is carefully leveled horizontally using a level.

The brick should be laid out immediately after the mortar has solidified. Red hollow and sand-lime bricks are not suitable for these purposes. When laying, it is necessary to observe the evenness of the rows and the verticality of the laying. Optimal size pillars for a bath - in one brick with dressing. For masonry, you can use reinforced concrete blocks with dimensions of 60 × 60 cm. After laying the pillars, they are coated on the outside with waterproofing mastic. This type is economical and durable.

Tape

The strip foundation is permanent and is suitable for the construction of a bath on most soils. The filling work is somewhat larger than the construction of a columnar one. Material costs will also rise. But the strength of the structure will be significantly higher, and there will be no distortion of the bath or cracks in the walls, of course, subject to construction technology.

Note! In some cases, special additives are used in the concrete solution to increase its resistance to increased moisture and sudden temperature changes.

Brick

The first brick option is the most successful both in terms of performance and cost. To install it, as in the case of the construction of a brick columnar foundation, you will need to pull out a pit with a similar depth. The general construction procedure is as follows:

A sandy and then a crushed stone pillow with a thickness of up to 20 cm is poured along the perimeter of the bath.
They ram it and lay out the brickwork, as in the case of the construction of walls with bandaging of subsequent layers.
The masonry is performed in this way:

a thin layer of cement mortar is applied to the surface of the brick,
put another brick on top, press it tightly, and remove the rest of the solution,
on loose soils, a reinforcing metal bar is laid every 2-3 layers.

Note! The thickness should be 10 cm wider than the walls to be erected, therefore they are laid in two bricks. Waterproofing is laid on both sides of the wall.

From reinforced concrete blocks

Laying the foundation for a bath from reinforced concrete blocks is not rational, since the blocks have a high cost and significant weight, however, construction work can be carried out at any ambient temperature. Such a base of the bath is formed using special equipment, since the blocks are of significant weight.

A trench breaks out under the blocks along the perimeter.
A sand-crushed stone pillow is laid on its bottom, rammed.
The blocks are carefully lowered there to the bottom.
Before installation, the blocks should be covered with waterproofing mastic.
Seams formed between adjacent blocks are filled with concrete.

Note! Before proceeding with the construction of the bath, you will have to wait several weeks until shrinkage occurs.

Concrete

The foundation for a bath, made of concrete, will require a significant waste of money and time. This is due to a significant increase in the complexity and amount of work carried out. With the correct filling, it will last long enough. The depth of the hole should be below the freezing level of the soil.

Before pouring the concrete solution, you need to install a pillow on the bottom of the pit and prepare a formwork suitable for the thickness of the walls. The simplest formwork option will be knocking down unedged boards in an amount equal to the perimeter of the bath. However, this method has a significant drawback, which is expressed in the absorption of water by wood, as a result of which there is a lack of moisture in the concrete and a loss of strength properties. If possible, it is better to build a metal formwork. It is laid along the perimeter of the bath, and then concrete is poured.

Note! The mortar should be poured in layers and evenly along the entire area in layers of 20-30 cm and leveled with a shovel to remove air spaces and ensure the uniformity of the structure. On loose soils, each layer should be reinforced with a metal lattice with a step of up to 10 cm and a bar thickness of up to 4 mm.

If it is possible to rent a vibrator or have your own, then they should go through each layer in order to compact the solution. Each dive must be accompanied by penetration into the previous layer and last at least a few minutes. The distance between the dives should be small - up to 50 cm, while it is advisable not to touch the formwork. When all layers are filled, the surface is leveled using a level and a rule.

After several days, the solution is set and the formwork is removed. The foundation will be ready for use in a month. During curing, the surface should be moistened with water every 4 hours. To prevent moisture from quickly evaporating or in case of precipitation, the building should be covered with a film. Direct sunlight is also undesirable.

If the work is carried out in the fall or spring, then the concrete is protected from sudden temperature changes with protective materials, covered.

In some cases, it may be necessary to build a slab foundation. Its construction is more expensive, so it is advisable to fill it in cases where the construction of columnar and tape types of base is impossible.

For oven

When building a bath with a brick oven, a separate foundation will be required, since the load per unit area will be significant. The technology of its laying is similar to the monolithic tape type. The depth should be at least 70 cm, taking into account the laying of the layers of the pillow. In terms of area, the pit should exceed the dimensions of the base of the furnace by 10 cm. This is done in order to prevent ground displacement.

Note! If you plan to install a metal furnace, then you do not need to make a separate foundation for it, since its weight is insignificant for the entire structure. It will only be necessary to lay additional beams under it so that the floors do not bend.

When planning the construction of a bath, many factors and nuances should be taken into account and given proper attention. At the heart of any bath is a foundation, and it largely depends on how long it can stand. On the other hand, there is a desire to save on building materials. Therefore, before making a base for a bath, you should evaluate the estimated weight of the structure and carry out all the work in stages. A properly thought-out construction process will guarantee that the constructed object will serve for more than a dozen years at the lowest cost.

The simplest bathhouse in the form of a one-story building with a steam room, a dressing room and a tiny dressing room will require an area of \u200b\u200bup to 25m 2 on its site. It doesn't matter what the walls are made of and how to build the roof of the bathhouse, if you have no desire to fight cracks in the walls of the steam room and patch up the cladding every year, be sure to make a foundation. Laying a mini-foundation tape for a bath requires a lot of time, effort and money. It is better to immediately make a strip foundation for the bath with your own hands, this guarantees quality. It will still be cheaper than remodeling a ready-made bathhouse, or dismantling an already almost built, but cracked bathhouse building and starting a small construction with a problem - how to fill the strip foundation under the bathhouse.

When you need a strip foundation for a bath

Even a full-fledged bath box, brick-thick, is not able to withstand the loads and stresses in the structure arising from subsidence and deformation of the soil under the weight of the masonry. If you do not make a strip base, even clinker bricks and rubble masonry in the walls of the bath burst and crack. The weight of the bath structure is also influenced by the shape of the building, the dimensions of the wall box and the dimensions of the roof. The larger the base area, the more beams and logs are needed to make the roof frame and ceiling, the greater the base pressure on the soil.

You can make the walls of the bath from a bar or log, but even in this case, if the bearing capacity of the soil is disturbed, wooden log cabins can give a roll and draft that can break the internal bulkheads of the bath and the roof rafters. Log buildings can be placed on tubular piles, on which to make a strip of the foundation frame from a bar. This version of the foundation allows you to even out the load and make the walls of the bath from a log.

What depth and width of the foundation tape needs to be poured is determined by the nature of the soil for the future construction of the bath:

For a dense mixture with a large amount of rocky rock of large and small fractions, the depth of the strip foundation can be limited to 40-50 cm.As a rule, it is very difficult to dig a deep full-fledged foundation with your own hands;
Dense skinny sand mixtures with a layer thickness of at least one meter. In such soil, the foundation is performed at a depth of 60-70 cm with mandatory control drilling in the corners of the future foundation box;
Any soil containing loam or clay, any rock capable of absorbing moisture. In such cases, it is necessary to make a trench under the foundation to a freezing depth plus 25-30 cm.

Important! On soils with a high content of sandy loam or sand, several additional rows of log piles can be made within the contour of the tape base. This option will help maintain the stability of the bath if groundwater begins to rise under the concrete tape.

Each of the piles must be "tied" to the walls of the bathhouse by laying at the base of the beams from a bar. In addition, this option of an additional foundation in the bath can be used as a base from a bar for heavy cast-iron stoves with a brick lining.

On dense rocky soils, you can count on a shallow strip foundation for a bath. Usually these are outcrops of stony fraction of marl, dolomite, or massifs of heavy monolithic rocks. In such cases, the trench under the foundation tape turns out to be shallow - 30-40 cm deep. The compressed rocky base acts as a foundation slab. In these cases, a strip foundation is needed to tie the building to the rocky foundation.

Do-it-yourself strip foundation for a 6x4 bath

Before you start digging trenches under the strip foundation, it will be correct to accurately link the drawing of the bath on the ground. With a wall size of 6x4, the width of the trench will be 10 cm wider on the side than the calculated thickness of the masonry plus 5 cm for the technological needs of the formwork installation. In total, for a bath with a wall thickness of 20 cm, the width of the trench will be 45 cm.Accordingly, the marking cord must be pulled on stakes along the perimeter of 6.5x4.5 m.

Advice! For any foundation work with a trench depth greater than 60 cm, it is best to use specialized trench or ditch cutting equipment. But before releasing the tractor to the area for the bath, you should make sure that there are no water, gas or electrical communications.

If a brick oven is planned to be laid in the bath, in this case it is necessary to make a full-fledged foundation for the oven and a main wall of brick, to which the stove and chimney will be attached. The trench and formwork for the inner strip foundation is performed in the same way as the main perimeter of the bath. The foundation for the furnace is made with a separate slab, and is not connected to the foundation strip of the main walls.

For strip foundations, it is recommended to use ordinary cement of the 400th grade with a small addition of a plasticizer from a surfactant or liquid soap to the concrete. For one part of the cement, three measures of quarry sand and three to five parts of crushed stone are used. A very good filler for the foundation is considered to be sea and river pebbles, soaked before laying in the base of the foundation for 20-30 minutes in a soapy solution.

How to properly fill the strip foundation

Preparation for concreting is carried out in two stages. For a foundation to a freezing depth, the pouring procedure is slightly different from the shallow version. The most durable strip foundation options are performed in the following sequence:

Advice! Before pouring the mixture into the formwork, install pipe cuttings in the trench, with the help of which through holes will be obtained in the concrete mass, through which water will be supplied in the future and sewer pipes installed.

The concrete is poured in layers as the concrete arrives from the assistants. The first layer of 15-20 cm and the last layer of concrete is recommended to be leveled with a trowel and processed with an electric rammer.

If the concrete solution is not enough, the pouring can be done in several stages or layers. Each new layer should have a thickness of at least 25 cm. In this case, it is recommended to reinforce each layer with fiberglass reinforcement in the form of a mesh-dressing. It is recommended to make a similar frame of 4-6 reinforcement bars for shallow strip foundations with an embedment depth of 40-45 cm.

After pouring, the formwork with concrete is covered with a damp cloth and plastic wrap. IN summer period, in the open sun, the poured concrete should be periodically sprayed with water to prevent overheating of the casting.

Lapping the strip foundation

The formwork from the strip foundation must be removed after two days. Until the concrete surface has even gained preliminary strength, it is necessary to trim and level the surface of the foundation strip horizontally.

On the cast strip foundation, it is necessary to make waterproofing and treat the concrete surface with bitumen mastic and roofing felt. After 10-12 hours, along the perimeter of the strip foundation, it is necessary to backfill with soil with compulsory compaction with a rammer.

The strip foundation has always been considered very cold for a bath, therefore a "warm" layer of 3-4 rows of hollow ceramic bricks was always laid on top of the concrete base. After leveling the brick layer, you can lay out cinder block, aerated concrete or arbolite stone.

Pouring a warm tape base under the bath

A relatively new method is to make a cast insulating in soil based on porous polystyrene plates. In this case, non-removable plastic plates are used for the manufacture of the formwork of the base strip, assembled and installed in the trench. Finished polystyrene foam tiles are butt-connected and fixed with metal spacers. After pouring, the concrete fixes the heat-insulating material and allows you to make a full-fledged insulation of the base of the bath.

The construction of any building begins with the construction of a solid foundation. Bath in this case is no exception. The bath foundation is not much different from the brownie. The characteristics and features of the installation of the most popular foundations for the building of a bath will be discussed in our article.

First, let's figure out what needs to be considered before choosing the type of foundation and how to prepare the site.

The method of laying the base under the structure depends on the following indicators:

Let's start by defining the type of soil. To do this, you need to dig a hole and study the soil.

To find out about the GWL, you can talk to your neighbors. Plus, if you've built a house, you've seen it before. The most accurate way to find out how deep the water goes is by drilling the ground with a garden auger. Such a well should be deep enough, at least 2-2.5 m. The easiest way will be to build a foundation where the groundwater level is one and a half meters deeper than the point of zero soil temperatures.

Knowing the type and characteristics of the soil, it is easier to choose a foundation option.

For arranging a small bath on clay and loamy soils with a deep groundwater level, a columnar foundation is suitable.
A universal option for medium-sized buildings is considered to be a strip base, a particular case of which for moist soils is a monolithic foundation.

There are other types of foundations, but still the most popular and often self-built are tape and columnar.

When constructing any foundation, at the preliminary stage, it is necessary to mark the area for building a bath.

They mark the territory for the basement of the bath after the preparation of this site. To do this, you need to remove the sod and level the site. To exclude flooding, the site is leveled with a slope in any direction, except for the north.

Now you can start marking the foundation.

Note! The width and length of the base should be at least 10 cm more than the same parameters of the structure of the bath itself.

Step 1. To begin with, prepare half-meter pegs, for example, from reinforcement. You will also need a rope that does not stretch, and a square.

Step 2. Drive the first peg into one of the corners.

Step 3. The square is applied at a right angle to the peg, and focusing on the legs, the sides are measured and the adjacent corners of the foundation are marked. The procedure is repeated until all 4 corners are marked. A rope is pulled between all the pegs. This is internal markup.

Step 4. Check the correctness of the markings by measuring the diagonals, the difference between the lengths of which should not exceed 20 mm.

Step 5. Install the cast-off at a distance of about one and a half meters from the pegs. It represents vertically placed wooden blocks, to which a board is nailed from above at the height of the future floor. The boards must be parallel to the walls of the future bath.

Step 6. The markings from the pegs are transferred to the cast-off. To do this, nails are driven into the board in places corresponding to the corners of the foundation and a rope is attached to them, which denotes the inner walls.

Step 7. On the cast-off, the outer surfaces of the foundation are marked in the same way. The width of the base of the bath can be 25 cm for wooden buildings and 35 cm for brick buildings.

Step 8. Measure the diagonals of the outer rectangle to check if the outer sides of the foundation are laid flat.

Now you can proceed directly to the construction of the foundation.

If you decide to build a wooden bath and the soil allows, then you can make a columnar foundation, which will significantly save money at this stage of construction.

Note! The bearing elements of such a foundation are located at a distance of no more than 2 meters from each other.

The material for the columnar base of the bath can be different: brick posts, logs, steel or asbestos pipes filled with concrete.

It is the last option, which is most popular, that we will consider.

Step 1. In the designated corners, a one and a half meter tunnel is drilled with a garden drill, the diameter of which is usually 5-10 cm larger than the diameter of the asbestos pipe prepared for the installation of the foundation.

Step 2. Pipes are inserted into the wells, which should rise above the ground by 0.4 m. Most often, products with a diameter of 200 mm are used.

Step 3. Align the pipes using the spirit level.

Step 4. Backfill around the pipes. In the process of dumping, the earth is tamped.

Step 5. The cement mortar is poured into the pipe about half a meter. It is not worth saving on cement.

Note! To prepare the solution in hot weather, it is better to use cold water... In cool weather, the liquid should be warm.

Step 6. Raise the pipe slightly in the hole to allow the cement to drain slightly to the bottom of the hole.

Step 7. Continue pouring the cement, leaving 15 cm of the top of the pipe unfilled.

Step 8. While the cement in the pipe is not frozen, a reinforcing bar is immersed in it.

Step 9. Now you can pour the cement up to the edges of the pipes.

Step 10. Between the pillars, brickwork is made half a brick wide.

Note! The masonry must be deepened by a quarter of a meter, and when constructing it, take into account the sewerage outlet.

Step 11. The resulting base is leveled with cement and covered with roofing material.

A simple and solid foundation for a wooden bath is ready.

For the construction of such a foundation, more labor and material resources will be required. But it is more versatile. And the principle of its construction is quite fast.

Step 1. Within the marking, dig trenches under the sides of the foundation. The depth of the ditches depends on the load on the foundation, the type of soil and the depth of soil freezing. Usually the bottom of the ditch is 0.2 m below the freezing point of the soil. Trenches should be 10-20 cm wider than the foundation walls. In crumbling soils, the ditches look like an inverted trapezoid. At the end of the digging, it is necessary to level and tamp the bottom, remove the collapsed soil from it

Shallow strip foundation - trench

Step 2. A cushion of sand and gravel is made in the trench. First, a ten-centimeter layer of sand, preferably a fine fraction, is poured, then it is poured with water and covered with gravel, also with a layer of 10 cm. The procedure is repeated until the middle of the trench is reached. The last layer should be sand.

Step 3. The pillow is covered with one brick layer on top, which will serve as a support for the reinforcement and exclude its sagging.

Step 4. Install the formwork. At this stage, you need to take care of the outlet of the sewer pipes. For this, inlet and outlet holes are made in the formwork and a piece of pipe is pulled through them.

Note! The formwork boards must be tightly fitted to each other to prevent mortar seepage. You can additionally cover the formwork from the inside with polyethylene.

Step 5. Prepare a cement solution. To do this, first mix the required amount of sand and dry cement, then add gravel to this mixture and mix. Add water.

Step 6. Reinforcement bars are laid perpendicular to each other inside the formwork. The intersections of the rods are not fixed by welding, but by wire strapping. This will give strength and, at the same time, flexibility to the future foundation. From the edge of the rods to the reinforcement there must be at least 50 mm.

Step 7. Now you can pour the cement in portions. The height of each layer, which is carefully leveled and tamped, should not exceed 0.15 m.

Pouring cement is best done during a period of no precipitation. For another week, the foundation will need to be watered every four hours. Keeping the base moist must be carried out for another 2-3 weeks, covering it with polyethylene. The formwork is removed after about a month. But in some cases, it is retained for thermal insulation of the foundation.

The base for the bath is ready. For large baths, a columnar-strip foundation is often built. In this case, a strip base is made under the outer walls, and a columnar base under the inner walls.

Video - How to make a strip foundation for a bath

Video - Types of foundations

In this article we will talk about how to make a foundation for a bath with our own hands, consider options for a strip and columnar foundation.

Before building a foundation, you need to decide on the type of foundation, based on the type of soil on the site. If a house was erected before, then the type of soil is already known.

Wet or loose soil requires a strip foundation.
Clay soil - columnar.
Soil with a difference in height - screw.
On swampy soils, the foundation must be chosen as a monolithic one.

The best options are strip and columnar foundations. The choice of them can be made at the stage of making a decision, from which building material the bath will be erected.

For instance:

if it is supposed to build a bath from blocks or bricks, a strip foundation is required.
if a wooden beam or logs become the building material for the bath, a columnar foundation will do.

Construction of the belt

tape measure, cord, wooden stakes;
a shovel, reinforcement in the form of metal rods and light wire for tying it;
sand, cement and gravel for the manufacture of concrete mortar.

First, you need to mark with stakes using a tape measure the corners of the perimeter of the future bath. A stretched rope will help you get a level foundation.

Around the perimeter of the future bath, you need to dig a trench below the freezing level in the area. The width of the trench should be at least 30 cm. The outer edge of the trench should follow the markings made with stakes and rope.

At the bottom of the trench, you need to pour 20 cm of sand and gravel mixture, spill it and tamp it well.

Reinforcement is laid on top - ready-made metal gratings, the thickness of the rods in which is at least 1 cm. If the reinforcement is a separate metal rods, they can be connected with each other using soft wire.

After installing or laying the reinforcement on the prepared bottom of the trench, you can start filling it with concrete. It is advisable to arrange the reinforcement so that it does not touch the edges of the trench and at the same time does not rise above the ground surface.

For the bath, it is advisable to use high-grade cement and fine-grained sand - this will provide additional strength for the future building.

If the strip foundation is to rise above the surface of the ground, it is necessary to install the formwork from wooden planks before pouring the concrete mixture. After several days, the formwork can be removed and the foundation can be left to dry for another week or two.

Columnar construction

If a columnar foundation is required, the following building materials and tools will be required:

stakes, tape measure and twine;
manual or electric drill;
piles - wooden posts, asbestos-cement or metal pipes or bricks;
cement, sand and gravel.

First, the territory is marked: the pegs are located at the corners of the perimeter of the future structure, a rope is pulled between them.

Places for pillars are marked: each hole should be located at a distance of 1-1.5 m from the previous one. This distance must be observed for both external and internal load-bearing walls.

When using wooden logs, they must first be treated with an antiseptic in order to avoid premature decay of the building material.

If pipes with a diameter of 20 cm - metal or asbestos-cement - act as the base of the foundation - they must be poured with concrete mortar during the arrangement of the base under the bath.

First, with the help of a manual or electric drill, holes in the ground with a depth of 1.2 to 1.5 m and a width of 25-30 cm are organized in marked places.

A 20-30 cm layer of sand and gravel cushion is placed at the bottom of each hole, it is spilled with water and carefully compacted.

A processed wooden post or pipe of the required height is placed on the prepared bottom.

Reinforcement is placed in the middle of the pipe or around the post, after which the pipe is poured with concrete, and around it, like around the post, the soil is compacted.

If the bath is made of timber, then for such a building you can choose the following types of foundation:

tape;
columnar;
monolithic.

Consider the features of their construction directly for a bath from a bar.

Concrete is poured along the designated perimeter. It has the following positive characteristics:

This type of foundation is able to withstand two floors, since its structure is strong enough.
It is very beneficial for the construction of a bath, as it has a low level of thermal conductivity.
It becomes possible to build an underground room or cellar.

If the bath will have a small size and a moderate weight of the structure, then a columnar foundation can be made. Mostly this type of foundation is used for such types of soils:

clay;
gravel;
sand.

Some of its advantages can be highlighted:

Relatively low price for construction.
If the soil in your area is sloping, then the columnar foundation will allow the construction of a bath.
It is very easy to manufacture, so you can completely do without the help of specialists.

This type of foundation is relevant for all types of soil. Its construction is a reinforced concrete monolith. Among its advantages are:

High strength and reliability.
Several floors can be built.

The main disadvantage of a monolithic foundation is its high cost.

A frame bath means the use of ready-made frames for quick construction. Considering these and other features of such a structure, let us compare the advantages of making a strip and columnar foundation.

It is important to understand that the design of a frame bath implies the arrangement of sufficiently thick foundation walls to hold the entire building. Depending on the material used, the thickness of the foundation may be different:

Reinforced concrete - thickness from 10 cm.
Natural stone - from 5 cm.
Concrete - from 25 cm
Slab concrete - from 30 cm.

When building a foundation, it is imperative to deepen it to a level below freezing of the soil up to 20 cm.On the other hand, it makes no sense to equip a foundation with a depth of more than 70 cm.From this it becomes clear that the strip foundation is divided into two categories:

Shallowly buried.
Recessed.

For the construction of a frame bath, it is enough to use a shallow foundation up to 60 cm deep.

Features of a columnar foundation

Although strip foundations have many advantages, they are used in most cases for block or brick structures. Therefore, if the bath is wooden, then you can stop at a columnar foundation. When building it, you will need much less financial costs for the source material.

Such a foundation is especially relevant for the construction of chopped, cobbled and frame structures. Since there is no need to build special lintels in the space between the posts.

However, if the soil is weak, then this type of foundation is not relevant. If you want to equip the basement, then with such a foundation it will be problematic to do this.

Furnace foundation

If you plan to install a brick oven in the bath, you need to organize your own foundation for it.

At the site of the future location of the stove, a hole is prepared in the ground with a depth of 50 cm.If one of the foundation pillars is provided on this site, then it is not installed at the entire height, but at a depth of 50 cm from the surface, it turns into a square or rectangular mini monolithic base.

The bottom is covered with a sand and gravel cushion, compacted, and reinforcement is placed on top. At the end, the hole is poured with concrete.