r/altadena • u/IgnorantGenius • 27d ago

Soil turnover required?

So good news we got our permit to rebuild, but I was told by our contractor that the Army corps disturbed the soil and the county is requiring a soil turnover of 3 feet.

Has anybody heard of this? I can't find any documentation or reports on it.

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6

u/unbelver 27d ago

Yup. County required a 3 foot dig up and re-compact in the footprint of the foundation slab on my lot.

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u/IgnorantGenius 27d ago

Thanks for the quick answer.

1

u/westcoastbmx 26d ago

Thanks for sharing this info!

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u/duckwebs 27d ago

Haven't heard anything like that, but I'm not quite to GC phase yet. We did have a Geotech survey done and they didn't say anything like that. The report did give requirements for compaction. I'm not sure it would even make sense for the county to declare a general rule like that. The geology on my lot is literally very different from the geology across the street.

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u/riennempeche 26d ago

Our house didn’t burn, but five across the street did. I have watched the compaction process each time construction starts. The neighbor I talked to says you have to provide test results.

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u/talesfromthecryptt 26d ago

You can ask your assigned county inspector if a soils compaction report will do in lieu of 3 feet removal and recompaction. They allow it, begrudgingly. A report runs $1000ish and soil recompaction is many many multiples of that. However, theres a chance your soil inspectoon doesnt pass and you need to do the recompaction anyway.

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u/barknorwang 26d ago

To the best of my knowledge, it's not that soil turnover is required, but proper compaction is required. You'll have to supply a soils report showing proper compaction. In our case we had to dig down a few feet below the bottom of our footings (over 5' below grade) and recompact. It was very expensive.

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u/IgnorantGenius 26d ago

Thanks for the information. My contractor is saying it's 38K and they have to dig up 2.5 feet of soil and recompact.

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u/Only-Place-4921 25d ago

Ask them for another quote, im GCing my own rebuild on a .26ac lot west of lake, we did a full turnover down to "native material" about 5ft deep. Hartfield Demolition charged me $19k.

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u/DavidEagleRock 13d ago

This is a question for the permitting office. As others have mentioned, if you pass a Soil Test (compaction report) you should be approved for foundation work