![]() ![]() If your foundation isn’t effectively supporting the weight of the home, the building could start to shear apart, causing cracks. The first thing to look for is cracks in the interior walls or exterior concrete block. Your home foundation may be underground, but there are telltale structural signs of foundation damage so you can know how your foundation is performing even though you can’t see it. How Is Your Home’s Foundation Performing? In a home, the concrete mat may only be a half of a foot deep, but the Burj Khalifa in Dubai has a 12-foot deep concrete mat. This concrete depth provides a stark contrast between a residential foundation and a skyscraper foundation. It’s usually about a four or six-inch deep concrete mat with gravel underneath for drainage. The shallowest foundation is a concrete slab that’s poured directly at ground level. Other home foundations have a narrow crawl space below the home. This is why full basements are common in the colder regions. Deep foundations are common in the Northeast where construction must reach below the frost line. Just like skyscrapers, residential foundation depth and design vary significantly. ![]() This means your building foundation is critical to both structural stability and financial equity. Foundation damage can result in a 30 percent loss in market value. Plus, a home’s foundation is integral to its value. A good foundation will also keep out moisture, improving the thermal efficiency of your home. Your home isn’t as tall as a skyscraper, but it still relies on its foundation.Īn average house weighs about 50 tons, and a good foundation keeps it from sinking, tilting, or shifting. Skyscrapers Aren’t the Only Buildings Depending on Foundations Achieving more height with less steel means that the structural system of the foundation has less building weight to support. For example, the Willis Tower in Chicago is eight stories taller than the Empire State Building, but its tubular design uses one-third less steel. By using the steel frame design, the inner skeleton of the skyscraper was anchored directly into the foundation.īuilding skyscrapers has also evolved to be more efficient in how it manages live load-bearing capacity. With the conventional system of load-bearing walls, the wall depth of the lower stories needed to be extremely thick to anchor the height of the tower. However, in order for skyscrapers to achieve the heights that we know today, building design and foundation design had to evolve hand in hand.Ī key development in skyscraper design occurred when buildings evolved from using load-bearing walls to steel frames to support the vertical load. For example, a skyscraper foundation is much deeper than the foundation of a residential home. The general rule of thumb is the taller the building is, the stronger the foundation needs to be. How Does Building Design Affect A Skyscraper Foundation? ![]()
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