Compare strip foundation and monolithic slab

The tape and mono­lith­ic foun­da­tions are con­stant­ly com­pet­ing with each oth­er, because among builders and non-pro­fes­sion­als there are sup­port­ers of both one and the oth­er type of foun­da­tion. Both are cer­tain­ly good, but which one is bet­ter? To answer this ques­tion, our ana­lysts looked into the design fea­tures of both options.

Features and benefits of a strip foundation

In gen­er­al, the tape struc­ture itself is sim­ple, but in gen­er­al this type of foun­da­tion is con­sid­ered more com­plex than a mono­lith­ic slab. Depend­ing on the depth of occur­rence, the tape struc­ture is deep, shal­low and not buried. The base is divid­ed into 2 types: sol­id and pre­fab­ri­cat­ed.

You can talk about each vari­ety sep­a­rate­ly for a very long time, so you should con­cen­trate on the fea­tures com­mon to all types of strip foun­da­tion:

1. High lev­el of strength;

2. Immu­ni­ty to heav­ing (vol­ume change) of the soil;

3. Impres­sive bear­ing capac­i­ty;

4. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of arrang­ing the base­ment;

5. Sim­pli­fied lay­ing of engi­neer­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions;

6. The high rigid­i­ty of the struc­ture reduces the require­ments for the met­al frame. In some cas­es, tape struc­tures do not need rein­force­ment at all.

7. Ease of instal­la­tion — the strip foun­da­tion is quite with­in the pow­er of non-pro­fes­sion­als — when installing it, you can do with­out the involve­ment of builders.

How­ev­er, it was not with­out its weak­ness­es, as always:

1. 
   High mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion — in the process of lay­ing the foun­da­tion, pre­lim­i­nary instal­la­tion of the form­work is required — one can­not do with­out aux­il­iary mate­ri­als (such as roof­ing mate­r­i­al and wood, for exam­ple).

2. 
   High mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion — the lev­el of mate­r­i­al costs in the process of erect­ing a strip base sig­nif­i­cant­ly exceeds the quan­ti­ta­tive result.

3. The strip foun­da­tion can­not be called a ready-made base for the floor.

Features and benefits of a monolithic slab

Such a foun­da­tion is laid with the cap­ture of the entire house area, to a small extent even pro­trud­ing beyond the walls of the build­ing. This type of foun­da­tion is a sol­id con­crete block, poured direct­ly into the place of fur­ther oper­a­tion.

Some mis­tak­en­ly con­sid­er the slab not the most reli­able option for a house foun­da­tion due to its shal­low occur­rence. Nev­er­the­less, the right thick­ness of the slab and well-exe­cut­ed rein­force­ment will cre­ate a high-qual­i­ty, reli­able foun­da­tion for the house.

Con­sid­er the main advan­tages of mono­lith­ic slabs:

1. High bear­ing capac­i­ty — a mono­lith­ic slab is able to with­stand enor­mous loads — the best option for heavy hous­es.

2. Large foot­print — suit­able for build­ing con­struc­tion on weak­ly bear­ing soils (espe­cial­ly those sub­ject to heav­ing or dis­place­ment).

3. Ease of instal­la­tion — a mono­lith­ic slab itself is a rather prim­i­tive design that does not require com­plex cal­cu­la­tions or actions dur­ing the con­struc­tion.

4. Low mate­r­i­al con­sump­tion dur­ing lay­ing — the con­sump­tion of mate­ri­als (both basic and aux­il­iary) is small. In most cas­es, form­work is not need­ed at all, and, if nec­es­sary, the num­ber of boards will be min­i­mal.

5. Sim­ple prepara­to­ry work — the most dif­fi­cult stage can only be called lev­el­ing the site for a mono­lith­ic slab (if it is required at all).

Despite the sim­plic­i­ty of work­ing with mate­r­i­al and con­struc­tion, a mono­lith­ic slab as a type of foun­da­tion has a num­ber of dis­ad­van­tages:

1. With a sig­nif­i­cant bend­ing load, pow­er­ful rein­force­ment is required;

2. Mate­r­i­al costs when lay­ing a mono­lith­ic slab grow in pro­por­tion to the increase in the area of ​​the build­ing;

3. The mono­lith­ic design excludes the pos­si­bil­i­ty of lay­ing util­i­ties under the house (the­o­ret­i­cal­ly, this is pos­si­ble, but they will last until the first break­down — it will be phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble to repair them);

4. A shal­low foun­da­tion also excludes the arrange­ment of the base­ment. If you deep­en the struc­ture, the costs increase sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Subtleties of choice

Answer­ing the ques­tion, what is bet­ter — a strip foun­da­tion or a mono­lith­ic one, it is impos­si­ble to choose the only cor­rect solu­tion. When choos­ing a suit­able option, it is nec­es­sary to take into account, first of all, the fea­tures of a par­tic­u­lar project:

1. Draw­ing of the build­ing — the first thing drawn atten­tion to the instruc­tions in the draw­ing. If the project is drawn up on its own, you need to pro­ceed from the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the soil.

2. The need for a base­ment floor — if it is planned to equip a base­ment or under­ground com­mu­ni­ca­tion wiring, the best option is a strip foun­da­tion.

3. The sever­i­ty of the house being built — for pow­er­ful build­ings, it is nec­es­sary to choose the type of foun­da­tion that will be able to with­stand the load — tape.

4. Type of build­ing — if the build­ing is tem­po­rary, it is bet­ter to give pref­er­ence to a mono­lith­ic slab — if nec­es­sary, it can be dis­man­tled and reused.

5. Soil type — if it is weak, then it will not be able to car­ry a sig­nif­i­cant load. In this case, a large sup­port­ing area is suit­able — it will pre­vent the sub­si­dence of the build­ing and even­ly dis­trib­ute the load.