# Did you build with wood or concrete pilings?



## Monarchy (Jun 3, 2004)

For you folks that built a place on the coast.....2 questions.....

Did you use wood or concrete pilings?

What drove that decision?

Thanks for your insight!


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## gater (May 25, 2004)

*Number 1 reason*

The number one reason IMHO is movement. All elevated houses are going to move some but it is more noticeable with wood especially if you go two stories. Other than that there is nothing wrong with using wood. Most of the Islands west end homes are built on wood where has Most of Tiki is on concrete. Remember with wood whatever is sticking out of the ground that much needs to be in the ground. One other thing, wood is cheaper. Gater


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## whatzup (Oct 3, 2005)

built my house in 2003 on wood 10x10 pilings, never considered concrete. all the homes {that i am aware of} in sargent are on wood, the older homes {after carla} used telephone poles.


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## CM (Jan 25, 2005)

Monarchy said:


> For you folks that built a place on the coast.....2 questions.....
> 
> Did you use wood or concrete pilings?
> 
> ...


My home was destroyed during the Hurricane and I had wooden pilings. 
Being that I am rebuilding again, I am going to have to come up to elevation codes, and I did a lot of study on the different types of pilings. Concrete, cinder block, wood, fiberglass, etc. The cost does make a huge difference in your decision. I went with Cinder block with 6-3/4" re-barb filled with concrete with a bell foot in the foundation. Concrete pilings were $1,000 ea, cinder block were $875.00ea. A lot of the decision might be where your lot is and the codes. Hope this helps.


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## trout250 (Aug 24, 2005)

when we built in sargent in 2001 we used 12x 12 for every foot in the air they are a foot in the ground, with a concrete collar at the bottom and midway up. they are spaced 7ft 7" on center which messed me up about parking under the house, because they used 2x10 for floor joist. If i had caught this in time and used 2x12 could have spaced my pieling futher apart. It is an engineered house.


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## kenny (May 21, 2004)

Wood is fine IMO. The pilings don't have to be as deep down as up. If it's a direct hit like Ike at Bolivar, I don't think it matters if they're wood or concrete. In case you haven't heard small square footage houses are "in".
If I'm not mistaken, those engineered houses that are way up in the air and survived on the peninsula are on wood pilings.
A new place here has big round wood pilings that had a special coating (looked like zinc maybe) on the end in the ground and it had virtually no structural damage. I think the ability to flex some may be a good thing.


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## Stealth Mode (May 22, 2004)

My house in Crystal Beach and many others in my subdivision were built in the 80s. My house, most on my street and all of front row are gone. After clearing the concrete and pulling up my remaining posts, I see they were only 4' in the ground. The 4 houses built since 2000 were built to the newer code. Posts were atleast 10' to 12' in the ground. They are 12 x 12 wooden posts, as were mine. These houses made it. The tall houses east of Rollover have concrete for posts. Thay made it except for a couple that probably got knocked down when a house in front of them collapsed and beat up against the posts.


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## podnuh (May 26, 2004)

my house was built in '64...on concrete pilings. every other structure has settled over the years, mine has not. I don't know how deep they go, but I'll bet that their pretty deep.
I'd go with concrete pilings if you can afford it. Hire a structural engineer and have him engineer the foundation.


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## 032490 (Jul 25, 2007)

We built our house in 2005. We have wood piling (12 X12) that are 12' in the ground. At the time I think the cost was $350 each and that included sinking them in the ground. We are at San Luis Pass, Treasure Island subdivision.
Ken


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## Mike77015 (Dec 27, 2007)

My beach house "WAS" in Gilchrest before Ike. All the houses with wood pillings are gone. Five houses remain and are on concrete and really built high up maybe 20' to the deck. One of the houses on the concrete pilings collapsed, but like previously mentioned was due to a debris field from other houses. Most of my concrete foundation is even gone. If you want it to last, I would recommend concrete.


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## monkeyman1 (Dec 30, 2007)

i'm not a structural engineer, which you need to allow to make this determination.

as for strength, i understand that the wood pilings (of appropriate spec for such) are as strong as concrete.

i have experience with concrete power poles vs. wood poles...both are sufficient as far as strength. we use concrete because the chemicals used to treat wood poles these days isn't as good as it was years ago (EPA). therefore, concrete lasts longer. but, concrete does cost more.

imo and from what i've heard, concrete or wood pilings didn't determine whether houses in bolivar were destroyed or not. other factors, such as depth of pilings, break-a-way garages, other debris/structures washing in the home, etc. caused the catastrophic damage.

all that aside, if i were building a new elevated structure, i would try and use concrete. pre-stressed concrete pilings have a known "moment" of stress and over time, wood could decay.

my 2 cents.


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## speckle-catcher (May 20, 2004)

a benefit of using concrete instead of wood is that as wood piers get larger, their available lengths get shorter.


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## Monarchy (Jun 3, 2004)

Thanks for the input so far. Obviously, we can do either so I am looking for some data points. Our engineer likes wood but we haven't gotten to the part where I've heard the convincing argument.

Please keep them coming. Again, I'm looking for what you used and the reason you chose that route. Thanks a ton!


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## Johnboat (Jun 7, 2004)

*Laguna Harbor and Audubon Village Survivors*

Across the U.S., and especially the Gulf Coast, developers are building a new generation of residences resilient to storm damage and hurricanes.








In Galveston, Texas, developer Crown Team Texas is constructing homes atop tall concrete stilts.

They are built to withstand hurricane winds as well as the most severe flooding, says Jim Hayes, the managing principal. Crown Team's Audubon Village and four other subdivisions are built on a peninsula 70 miles southeast of Houston. The land is at risk, as it rests below the flood point.

"I was inspired by Alys Beach, and we decided to build subdivisions based off those standards," Hayes said.

The insurance industry is a major force behind efforts to build super-strong houses. Fortified homes such as those at Alys Beach and Audubon Village are being constructed to new standards set by an insurer-backed nonprofit in Tampa, Fla.

That organization, the Institute for Business & Home Safety, started the "Fortified... for safer living" program in 2000. It combines strict building guidelines with a rigorous inspection process. It also provides home certifications that builders can advertise and home buyers can use to request insurance discounts.

Across 14 states, 2,500 built or planned homes follow the program, says manager Chuck Vance. What it entails depends on area risks.

Inspiration for better building has arisen from the devastating hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, Katrina included. These storms - the costliest in U.S. history - did billions of dollars damage and left hundreds of thousands homeless. The wreckage showed how poorly weaker structures fared and how choice of materials and construction methods made a difference.

"Evidently, the damage caused has people concerned about home safety in disaster-prone areas," said Gopal Ahluwalia, a vice president at the National Association of Home Builders. "The other big issue is owners cannot afford the cost to insure their homes in these areas."

In hurricane country, insurance costs skyrocketed and availability waned after the storms. But now a few insurers offer discounts on fortified homes in coastal areas.

Fortification could cut policy costs in half, says Insurance Information Institute Chief Economist Robert Hartwig. But just 2% of homes in at-risk areas are fortified.

Building fortified adds 3% to 10% to costs, Vance estimates.








"That's not much to pay for a little peace of mind," he said.

Some fortified homes carry luxury price tags - in Alys Beach they run to $5 million. But Hayes sells stilt homes for $130,000 to $288,000.

He starts with 10-foot holes he fills with concrete to form 14-by-14-inch columns. Reinforced with steel rods, these stand 20 feet in the air, above foreseeable floods.

The home's frame is built with extra-strong laminated wood and interlocking plank floors. The builder uses special nails that have to be cut to be removed. The home is bolted into the concrete columns.

Manufacturers are joining the fortification act, developing materials that protect against storm damage.

Such innovations are finding a market among seekers of sturdy homes. But the broadest construction changes across communities may come from building codes.

Fortified homes have a higher resale value, Hartwig says, adding that even older homes can be retrofitted to improve durability and thus increase their value.

"The return on investment by retrofitting or buying a fortified home will be more than investing in decorative home amenities.


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

Well I see lots of wood pilings on he west end of Galveston. Here at Tiki we normally use concrete. Cinder block is OK because in reality the cinder blocks are only a form for the concrete. A 12X16 inch cinder block filled with concrete is fine as long as you use enough steel inside. At Tiki we use 12X12 poured in place concrete with 4 nr 7 rebar in the colums with 3/8 stirrups every foot. A nr 7 rebar is actually 7/8 inch diameter. Now under the slab at every column is a wood piling driven to 20 feet deep which actually supports the slab. All the dirt could wash away and the slab will remain on the underground columns. Also it should never "settle". The real key to "survival" of a home during a storm is elevation of the structure. If the requirements are 15 foot them make it 17. Also all walls downstairs must be "breakaway"to keep any pressure off of the colums the downstairs must "go away" during a flood or storm. My .02 cents is CEMENT colums. 

Tiki did well during Ike most lost downstairs as expected but no destroyed homes. Yes some of the older lower elevation homes had some damage but all in all Tiki did well and I believe because of very strict building codes. 

Charlie


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## gater (May 25, 2004)

*Pilings*

Like Charlie said, elevation is the key...there is no such thing as a storm proof home. Elevation is the reason those tall ones in Bolivar are still standing. They are basically built no different than what we do in the coastal zones now, just higher. If the water was to get into those home they would come apart just like the rest of them. Kenny is right in that you want it to have some give which both concrete and wood do. The wood has a little more play and from my experience you may not want to use tile floors in a house with wood pilings because the movement cracks the grout. This does not occur in all homes but is more common than you might think. You don't notice it as much with homes on concrete. Gater


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## Bueno Suerte (Jun 27, 2004)

As many have said elevation is more of a factor that piling material of construction. The second factor is depth and method of embedment. Pilings can be driven or drilled and backfilled or a combonation of both. The right method is determined by the soil type. If you are in sand, driven is the way to go. If you are in clay (gumbo) soil with rocks mixed in it is very hard to drive pilings in straight. Options in gumbo are to drill 5 foot and drive the rest, or drill all the way and backfill around the piling. That brings us to back fill material and method. Many builders back fill with native soil with no effort to compact. I do not agree with this method. I back fill with concrete for at leist one half of the embedment depth, then finish off with stablized sand. Stabilized sand alone is also an acceptable choice if vibrated to compact and layed in layers (or lifts).

So what does this mean for your original question? Answer depends. Driving sub piles and finishing with formed concrete makes sence on Tiki, or in Seabrook - but not in an area you expect sand erosion from under the slab - Close to the gulf.

One note, for all concrete poured near saltwater, make sure that the rebar has 2" of concrete covering it every where in the slab, piles, beams etc. Salt will migrate through concrete and cause the rebar to rust. As it rusts it will expand and cause the concrete to crack and fall off, exposing the rebar to more salt and more corrosion and more cracks etc.

For the record I like wood, either drilled and set in concrete or drilled, driven and backfilled with stabilized sand. No steel to rust, and a solid connection from the bottom to the top.

If you would like to discuss your situation send me a PM.

Good Luck


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## Sow Trout (Jun 28, 2004)

Be sure to use pilings that have a round surface and not a flat surface. That made a big difference during Carla at Surfside.


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

Bueno Suerte is pretty close on everything. I differ in that he thinks sub pilings in sandy area are not good.. I think and have seen when the sand washes then the sub pilings take over and the slab is just seting on the sub pilings. I think its the only way to go with pourded in place concrete pilings. Certainly supports the slab to avoid settling or cracking and holds slabs if an "washout" should happen. God forbid..

Charlie


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## Bueno Suerte (Jun 27, 2004)

Thanks Charlie. I agree sub piles are the only way to go with poured in place pilings. I just see to many poor installations where the sub-pile is not capped properly. In other words that piling is driven below grade and then the concrete contractor does not dig out around and clean up the exposed section of the sub pile prior to pouring the slab. I like to see a separate cap poured on sub piles, then the slab poured independantly to insure that the foundation is solid from top to bottom and not weakened by washout.


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## owens33 (May 2, 2007)

bridge harbor area 8" square creasote poles built in '73. so far so good.


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## CHARLIE (Jun 2, 2004)

Bueno Suerte

Totally agree, must be good penetration and bonding of the sub pile to the slab normally in a grade beam on the big end of a sub piling so it cannot be lifted off the sub piling..

Charlie


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