Foundation design includes the analysis and design for residential construction usually fall under the IBC (International Building Code) formula/recipe. A foundation design could require construction to be of pourd concrete, masonry block or insulated concrete forms.
The reason a foundation design is important in the Smoky Mountains is when a home is built on the side of mountains, there are a very unique set of soil parameters and site parameters that have to be considered and taken into account. These considerations and perameters are outside of what normal/traditional foundations built in less mountainous considerations would allow.
One thing that makes Elevation Engineering and Design incredibly unique and special is that we are willing, based on experience, to work in the gray area of the code. Because again, these codes no longer fall into the international residential code and therefore have to be designed per the international building code, which is a lot more conservative and has to take into account several other factors that aren’t necessarily at play in residential construction.
One can always tell an engineer that has been hired from out of state or from not in this area when you look at their foundation design plans, they run all their engineering plans through the IBC (International Building Code) formula/recipe. By using this formula/recipe the outside engineering firm ends up over-engineering the project and present plans for footings six, to seven-foot wide and large keys, which is just a portion of the footing itself.
By hiring Elevation Engineering and Design “Sevier County’s Only Residential Structural Engineering Firm” to engineer your foundation design plans, you receive exceptional service from an engineering firm that knows the soil, slopes, and methods necessary to properly engineer (not over-engineer) your mountain construction project. The construction material cost savings of concrete and the amount of rebar alone would easily pay for our services. For instance, if you were to actually take the standard basement design that is allowed for in the (IBC) international residential code and run it through the IBC design standards, it would fail. For a ten-foot tall basement wall, you only have to have a two-foot footing, 12 inches thick, and require a number four, rebar at 48 inches. If you just go up to 11 feet, which means you can no longer use that code, you have to go to the international building code. All of a sudden, your footing is almost 5 to 6 feet wide. The rationale that we use is you can’t tell me that by going up a foot that we go from a two-foot footing to a five-foot footing. That’s just not theoretical.
We have established ourselves as a one-stop-shop for all residential and overnight rental projects in the Great Smoky Mountains, our goal is to Make Complex Simple.
318 Cherry St,
Sevierville, TN 37862
865-325-9277