Today, We will discuss Hillside Foundation Repair in Los Angeles. It looks like our newest project, an renovation/addition in the hills in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, will soon be in construction. I’m actually so excited, that I have a short video to share. First, let’s go back in time…
To build on a hillside in Los Angeles, such as the site shown here, you will need to hire a soils and geotechnical engineering firm to perform exploratory digging, analyze your site’s geology, and prepare a special technical report. The soils report is a technical report that must be approved by City of L.A. Grading Department. The process can cost thousands of dollars, and add many weeks to the timeline. The approval process can be expensive and time-consuming, but the soils report will prove invaluable to the structural engineer who will use the data in the report to design the foundations correctly.
The Grading Department in this case waived the soils report requirement, but only under certain conditions. One of the most important conditions was that foundations must be laid on natural soil or bedrock. To better understand this requirement in our case we mobilized last week a small crew at the site and dug a sample pit. We wanted to know the depth of bedrock. I was worried about this because a geologist that I spoke with said it was likely the bedrock in this area was 20′ to 25′ deep. This would have made the small addition unfeasible financially and halted the project. We discussed the matter and decided that it would be worth it to invest in a test-pit now before beginning demo.
No one wants to dig foundations and then tear down half of the house, only to find out that the city and engineers will have to do crazy gymnastics at that point.
Digging in the Dirt
What have we discovered? Discover more by watching!
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