Private House Builder
Welcome to Eaton Geotechnics, and thank you for taking the time to visit our site. This section is designed to give you a quick overview of the type of services we offer for the private builder and to point you in the direction of more detailed information available elsewhere on the site.
Considering Land Purchase?
If you have found your ideal plot and are ready to purchase we would advise you to commission a desk study from us. This is an extremely cost effective method of conducting due diligence before purchasing a piece of land. We have access to several comprehensive national databases from which we can build an accurate profile of your plot, including its previous history and highlighting any likely problems, whether related to soil type, previous use, mining activity and groundwater or flood risk.
This comes to you as a detailed report together with recommendations for any further work that you may need to consider at this stage. We only base such recommendations on factual evidence from the desk study, in which case we can design an appropriate ‘intrusive’ site investigation involving the production of pits, boreholes, sampling and laboratory testing if required.
Most people would never consider buying a house without having a survey done , and the same principal applies to buying a plot of land. Furthermore, experience shows that conducting such investigations before purchase can save clients both time and money on their overall project costs. This may result from more cost effective foundation design, reduction in purchase price due to the identification of contaminants, improved drainage being installed prior to building work and so on. A good site investigation can also help speed up planning permission and prevent costly delays later on due to unforeseen problems emerging.
Thinking of Installing Geothermal or Ground Source heating?
With rising fuel prices and the current trend towards sustainable energy, many home builders are looking to incorporate geothermal heating into their build. Since not all soils or site conditions are suitable for such installations, the more information available in advance the better. Again, a desk study will provide this and help with the decision making. Once the decision is taken to go ahead, we can design and drill an appropriate installation for your chosen system. If you like the idea of sustainable energy but would like more information on these heating systems, we have partnering arrangements in place and can put you in touch with heat pump experts who can discuss the options for your particular situation.
Subsidence on an existing building?
If you have purchased or built a property which has subsequently suffered from this condition, then we can investigate, identify the cause and propose solutions.
The solutions to many such instances are found below the ground, and so we can design and conduct an appropriate investigation, examine the foundations and the ground beneath and correctly identify the cause of the problem.
We have equipment that will enable us to sample soil quality and characteristics at various depths, allowing us to build up an accurate profile of both the soil composition and strength. Usually this will show why a problem has occurred and point the direction for a solution.