20x30 cabin

[Don_P]

This looks like it might be a good one for some info;
http://www.foundationperformance.org/projects/FPA-SC-01-0.pdf

[CjAl]

Chances are they meean the type of piers you see.down on the beach houses. Huge timbers and sunk 20+ feet in the ground

we are all sand in my part of tx. But i have a 30' long spot of clay in my driveway. Its either hard as concrete or bottomless muck. I have put 4 loads of gravel in it over the last 5 yr and its still a mud.hole. The gravel just disappears as it gets pushed down into it. No way id want to build on that stuff unless it was on a solid slab

[MountainDon]

One of many of the engineered examples given in Don_P's link.

[jbiehl]

This looks like it might be a good one for some info;
http://www.foundationperformance.org/projects/FPA-SC-01-0.pdf

Thank You, ill be reading into this a lot more maybe later tonight but for the most part I am liking the "4.1.1.2 Structural Floor with Crawl Space and Deep Foundations" found on pages 9 & 10. For now I have got to run, more in tonight's post!

[davidj]

By pier and beam I think those guys mean something different than the typical pier and beam foundation commonly found here. Or am I wrong on that?    Seems to me I recall something about the beams meaning poured concrete perimeter beams and I forget what else. Or I could be thinking of something else altogether.

Pier and grade beam is often used around the hills in the bay area.  I think you basically put a bunch reasonably deep concrete/rebar piers into the ground - think 12ft deep or something of that order - and skip the footings at the bottom.  You're relying on the friction between the sides of the piers and the ground to hold them up.  Then you connect them to each other with site-formed concrete beams at around grade level (but not supported by the ground).  A big house can have many 10s of piers and a similar number of beams.

This isn't cheap - you can easily spend $100K on a foundation.  But I think it's the technique of choice in some problem locations, especially hills.