Untested embankment needs certified

[trout211]

a "friend" plans to build a pole barn. He has an engineer that designed the building. The county inspector came to review the site and noticed that the building site had been graded. There is a small fill - less than 2 feet, that was built several years ago when the pad was leveled. The inspector took issue with this fill, and wants an engineers approval that the fill is okay to build on. I would like to help him save money but not at my own risk. I propose having a testing agency perform some density tests at various locations, possibly at the surface and down one foot. With acceptable results would I be okay certifying the fill even though I was not onsite during the construction phase?

I do not want to be responsible for the pole foundations. I am also curious why the inspector is concerned about the fill as the pole foundations have been designed already.

 

[civilperson]

Fill settlement does not matter to foundations of buried poles. Test a few locations at various depths and let the test results be the cert.

 

[GeoPaveTraffic]

The inspector is just being a pain in the ...

If there was only a couple of feet of fill placed your idea of testing the surface and a couple of holes should be fine.

 

[msucog]

i wouldn't necessarily agree that fill settlement doesn't effect buried poles...however, in this case, 2' of fill is nothing. technically, it sounds like it this 2' has nothing to do with foundation support. catch a few tests at subgrade or dig a foot down and call it good.

 

[BigH]

If this was one of the places I've worked over the last 12 years, I would understand why the inspector . . .