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Clean structural fill

Mdntramble17

Geotechnical
Joined
Feb 24, 2024
Messages
5
Location
US
I have a question in a geo report It states the engineer fill be free of organic material or less than 3% by volume. Is that typically referring to overall organics within the soil content as in microscopic organics that the naked eye doesn’t necessarily see, The contractor is placing fill, particularly within 1 foot of a rough subgrade On a building pad, where 100+ footings are going to be dug with these large stumps roots, etc. be acceptable? It’s in excess amounts, essentially just to avoid importing clean structural fill. Eventually, the concrete contractor will come excavate the footings and run into all this stuff and have a lot of unnecessary or affordable undercuts, correct?
 

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Footing should rest on undisturbed soil. That material looks like it will settle a ton.
 
That looks like the kind of material that would definitely be unacceptable organics. It's going to rot away and leave voids in the soil leading to settlement.

#
 
The odd rootlet or branch is acceptable, they can be hand picked out. The materal in your pics is not acceptable, even if the came back with an organic test saying less than 3% I would not accept it.

Also it’s normally % weight not volume. You can’t measure organic volume in a lab
 

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