Basement-Waterproofing101 Waterproofing Information

February 28, 2011

Exterior Digging? Read This OSHA Article on Caveins

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 4:10 pm

An open excavation is an unnatural situation. The average landscape shows no vertical or near vertical slopes.

Soil or dirt is a very heavy material. A cubic foot can easily weigh 114 pounds and a cubic yard can be as heavy as a pick-up truck.

Consider a column of soil which is one foot by one foot and several feet high. At one foot of depth a horizontal plane one foot by one foot is carrying the cubic foot which lies over it. The stress, or load per unit area is 100 lbs. per square foot (psf). At a depth of two feet the horizontal plane is carrying two cubic feet or 200 psf. At a depth of five feet the vertical stress is 500 psf, and so on.

The column described would soon collapse if not supported by similar adjacent columns. Stresses are developed which act horizontally on the column. These lateral stresses can be considered

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