For many years everyone has used the Leaning Tower of Pisa as the right model to look into. Learn from the builders who constructed about 800 years ago, that if you construct foundation that aren’t strong enough, especially on soils that are poor it will cause problems with settlement. It’s amazing that throughout the years builders make the same mistakes. The foundation repair Utah issues from the past aren’t much different from the problems that plague foundation today. We even went through the effort of having someone alter the logo for us, so that we could copyright the design. One question I receive every week is: how do you solve this?
Pisa’s tower Pisa was constructed in 1173, and was designed to be erected vertically. But it failed due to poor foundation and poor soils, the tower began to lean shortly after construction began. For this reason, construction was halted in 1178, resumed in 1272, halted in 1284…and in 1319 the seventh floor was completed.
Were erected to keep the lean from happening
Due to the lean, after the construction resumed in 1272 the floors were planned to be higher to one end than on the other. This is why the tower is actually an incline to it.
Behaviours for a stop to any settlement leaning:
- The lead weighing 800 tonnes was put on one side of the lean to provide stability to the lean.
- Bells were removed in order to alleviate some of the burden
- Cables were erected to keep the lean from happening.
- A total of 50 cubic yards was removed from the upper part of the tower (1990). (Engineers declared it to be stable for the next 300 years.)
- A lot more soil (77 ton of soil) was taken away (2008) to ensure stability of the moving. (Now the engineers claim that it will remain steady for 200 years.)
Different from the problems with foundation of today
However, because of poor Utah residential helical piers and poor soils. the building began to tilt just after the beginning of construction. Because of this, the construction was stopped in 1178. It was restarted in 1272, and stopped at the time of 1284…and in 1319, the seventh floor was finished. Learn from those who built around 800 years ago, that when you build foundation that are not strong enough on poor soils, you’ll experience problems with settlement. It’s quite amazing that even in all the time, builders continue to commit the same errors. Foundation issues of the past aren’t that different from the problems with foundation of today.
