Water, water everywhere, it makes my home sink

One of the issues with this home, is that it is located in two "Environmentally Critical Areas" or ECAs. This means that there is some consideration which will affect the building or structural requirements for the home. In my case, this home is located in a valley between two hills. At some point in the past, there was a stream which was covered with fill, and surrounding this stream was a peat bog. Unfortunately I don't know right now whether it was filled by man or by natural processes. But regardless, the fill is loose and unstable.

So, I have to deal with liquefaction prone soil (due to the fill) and the potential peat bog underneath. In fact, these soil conditions are a part of the reason the house has settled so much (8" of settling over the 50' or so is quite a lot).

What's a boy to do? Hire a geo-tech of course!

The geo-tech came out and bored two test holes and then wrote up a report detailing the soils encountered, blow counts at the various depths and whether the site is suitable for development.

Lucky for me, the property was suitable for development, either with a slab foundation or pin piles.

Also, I now have a fancy report detailing the soil conditions of my home. I bet you don't have that....

Here you can see the boring machine drilling down into the soil.

Here you can see the probe after it's penetrated between two geologically distinct layers.