pier foundations / sonotubes

[dorothyinak]

Maybe someone can point me in the right direction...I plan on building a 16x20 ft 1 1/2 story cabin this summer.  I'm trying to find the easiest and least expensive option for a foundation.  I'd like to use sonotube, but can they hold the weight of the cabin by themselves (spaced every 8-10 feet)?  I have seen them used extensivly on decks and sheds but didn't know about cabins...

[Amanda_931]

Filled with concrete and rebar they do.  Backfilled below grade.

(although people have used them by themselves for other purposes--seems like the old James Hennessy Victor Papanek Nomadic Furniture did--book is now a collector's item and mine's long gone)

[Amanda_931]

Subwoofers are a nice use for them too, although  my recollection was that Nomadic furniture made chests of drawers out of them.

Telescopes and drums have their sonotube adherents.

What the finished product looks like--in buildings--from the European point of view--.pdf alert.  Sonoco is careful to mention that after you take the cardboard off of the concrete, the cardboard can be recycled.

http://www.sonoco.com/resources/ipdeuro_sonotube+2003+-+english.pdf

Chimney for a kiln (or anything else?--these things come in diameters up to five feet--I've been looking for something like this)

http://www.potters.org/subject13998.htm

John will find something that tells us how to use sonotubes in construction.

[dorothyinak]

Well, Tyvek is the siding of choice for many up here...maybe sonotube funiture is the next logical step...

This site is great, thanks for all the information already listed!!

[JRR]

Sonoco = SOuthern NOvelty COmpany.

Spiral wrapped paper tubes (smaller diameters...orignally used mostly as yarn spools) was a fairly new product when I was an engineering co-op student/employee with this company a half century (Well, almost) ago.
(Where have the years gone!)

The paper tubes, impregnated with resins, were also briefly sold as underground drainage pipes.   PVC pipes killed this product's market in its infancy.

[Amanda_931]

I'd misread, thought Sun Oil Company, wondered why.

[John Raabe]

Here's an example of a sonotube foundation for a gazebo: http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:mAVMZiutoX4J:www.summerwood.com/foundation_gaz.jsp+sonotubes+in+construction&hl=en

You have probably already found the Wing house photos of their 14x24 cottage on the Owner-built Gallery pages. It uses a sonotube foundation. http://www.countryplans.com/wing.html

[Dan H.]

Here's some more good info.  We used these on our cabin.    Worked out great.

http://www.bigfootsystems.com/

[Chinook]

I have used sonar tube foundations on a small house and cabin with no trouble at all, and the building inspectors were happy. An important point is the bearing area at the bottom of the tube must have enough total area to support the weight of the building for you soil type, this usually means a lot of tubes or more commonly some type of pad at the bottom of the tube, my last cabin was 16x32ft build on hard clay it had 8 tubes with bases of 6.25 sq ft each. The addition was 14x24ft and used 6 tubes/footings of the same size, we built in an area of heavy frost with 48" deep footings and backfilled with the original clay all is fine after 15 years.  My next project is a 24x24 single story using 8 tubes with 24"Bigfoot bases this are a lot easier to work with than pouring the footing then the tube, the bearing area is only 3 sq ft per base but as we are building on hard packed gravel it should be fine providing we have no surprises digging the holes, the area is known for growing rocks.
    The base and tubes should contain at least 2 L shaped lengths of rebar and a rule of thumb we use is that the cement tube shouldn't extend out of the ground more than 2 times the diameter of the tube without extra re enforcing or bracing.
  The only problems I have seen on these types of foundations have been in clay in northern B.C. where the tubing had no base on it or no rebar, the frost grabbed the tube and lifted it partly out of the ground complete with the carport, it is hard to imagine but under certain conditions of heavy frost the cement column can come under enough tension to snap the concrete and lift the top of it and the building hence the need for the rebar and base. Some people also leave the sonar tube on after the cement is cured with the idea that the frost will grip the tube and not the cement.

[Amanda_931]

There was a thread here on foundations in Maine with some sort of patent foundation thing.  Somebody in Fine Homebuilding magazine--current issue or one just past--loved them, but said he'd also used plastic wrapped around his sonotubes so that the frost didn't grab it, or plastic pipe instead of tubes for the same purpose.

[Jochen]

I have used 8" Sono Tubes and 24" Bigfoot footings for my 20' x 24' cabin. The footings are spaced 8' apart and have no problems to carry the weight of the cabin.

Jochen