Constructing a House,Barn,Shop or Mobile Home Pad

Its been awhile, I have been extremely busy in Kurten Tx. I want to explain some methods and ways to construct a House or Mobile Home pad today. There are many ways to do this and the below are a few methods I employ in doing a house or mobile home,shop pad etc. These are my opinions and I suggest anyone to do your own research and seek advice or ask questions when undertaking this or any other project of dirt work.

When Constructing a pad for a home first you need to determine where the pad will be placed and be sure that it is fairly level, once this is accomplished you will need to strip the area 4 to 6 inches. ( sometimes a foot or more may be neccesary to achieve optimum results) slightly larger than the intended pad size of all organic,wet or muddy soil to give yourself the best possible footing for the pad. The equipment used to spread the fill can vary from a small bulldozer to a tractor with a box blade or even a skid steer loader depending on your budget ,equipment available and also the number of loads of fill your are planning on bringing in to do your house or mobile home pad.

I suggest using a 80% clay and 20% sand mixture for your pad. There are many methods of compaction and the best by far is using a vibratory compactor and putting the fill in 6 to 8 inch lifts depending on the finished sub grade of the pad. If you are on a budget you can use the dump trucks for compaction as a pneumatic tired vehicle that is loaded with dirt will provide more than enough compaction for the pad if done in a consistent manner. Also when doing a House,mobile home or building pad customers may have a desire to have the fill dirt tested and have a lab technician present to check the compaction and moisture content of each lift, this may be neccesary to satisfy property owner,lender or Bank needs for warranty or insurance needs. The fill material will have to be sampled and tested in a lab prior to starting the work.

The average number of loads of fill dirt for a home or mobile home pad or shop will vary depending on the square footage or foot print that you are planning on having. The average home is about 2500 square feet and will average 30 to 40 loads of fill dirt with and average heigth of about 2 feet, while a mobile home pad will be less at about 1000 square feet and averages about 5 to 10 loads of fill dirt at an average height of 6 inches.

If you are doing a pad for a small building or shop or patio etc you can also use a farm tractor and box blade to spread the material using the tires on the farm tractor to achieve compaction. Although a bulldozer may weigh thousands of pounds more than a farm tractor or skid steer loader, the steel tracks and length of the track frame, width of track pads are designed to give the machine a low impact foot print using a dozer with LGP undercarriage puts very Low Ground Pressure as the machine travels over ground. This will not provide adequate compaction for a house or mobile home pad. Any pneumatic tired equipment,i.e. loaded dump truck, farm tractor,skid steer loader, even a pick up truck will provide better compaction than a steel tracked machine. The moisture content of the soil will determine how well or quickly compaction will be achieved,if the soil is to dry compaction usually will not be able to be achieved while if the fill dirt is to wet the same will be true. This is my opinion and I do again suggest asking or seeking as much advice as possible before attempting any project which not familiar with its methods or processes.

Brian Beke