I have a question about undisturbed land

[Kingrace78]

Hi group.   I have been looking at this forum for a couple of years, first post.   I own 88 acres of land in southeastern Kansas.  It has a pond that is about 20 acres.  This is reclaimed coal strip pit land.   The pit was active somewhere from 1870's till early 1900's.  The land is very rough terrain built up by piling dirt when stripping to get to the coal.   I bought the plans and want to build a story and half cabin.  The site I plan to build the house is a hill that I assume was built from the stripping. I am planning on a full walkout basement with poured walls and footings.         
Since this is not undisturbed virgin soil, but has not been disturbed for a long time, Would you be concerned about building a house on it?
Thanks, John

[MountainDon]

Get a soils engineers opinion?

[kbaum]

You can get free help from the Natural Resources Conservation Service, they fall under the US Dept of Agriculture.  They should have a office in (all most) every county seat.  They can help with soil properties and characteristics.  They also have a web site you can use free that helps with if you land is suitable to build on.  http://websoilsurvey.sc.egov.usda.gov/App/HomePage.htm  Just hit the green button on the home page and it is ok to manuver in. The downloadable broucher help quite a bit.

[kenhill]

I would be concerned about good drinking water too

[John Raabe]

I would check all those things. And you should have an engineer check the soils and the appropriate foundation details. All the designs in stock plans assume undisturbed bearing soil for the footings. That won't be true here.

I once asked my engineer how long it took for fill dirt to be considered "undisturbed soil" - he said "after you run a glacier over it." 

[UK4X4]

Definitly worth the expence of a knowlegable engineer !

The Aberfan disaster in the UK was a catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip killing 116 children and 28 adults after heavy rains the whole pile turned to slurry and burried the village.

[Kingrace78]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
John

[Kingrace78]

I know how much I enjoy everyones pictures, so I thought I a post a couple.

Google map of Land:


Picture of part of the lake:

[UK4X4]

That looks pretty !

so that looks like a slurry dump with a dam

any chance of getting some time in the library and digging out some old maps with contour lines to see if there's any original parts to your property or at least shallow dumping

Run some piles through and down to the original soil and build off them !

[Don_P]

I've used this resource for my area. Although they don't have Kansas listed they may be able to point in some directions if you strike out locally;
http://historical.mytopo.com/

[Squirl]

I had to hire a soil engineer anyway as part of the septic process.  As long as they are digging in the dirt, it shouldn't be a problem to get both done at the same time.  I would also be concerned about the septic.  Around me many reclaimed strip mines have stripped away the top soil and are just shale pits with only a thin layer of soil on top.