Ground composition in SLV near Blanca (Alamosa, Del Norte: fit in, house, construction)

[Hyperviktor]

Anyone knows the type of soil I will find near Blanca? Do people usually get a soil survey done before building the foundations ? What's the typical load bearing in the area of the soil? Anyone had to dig deeper to find solid ground for the foundation ?

[Hyperviktor]

Anyone ?

[interloper1138]

Viktor, are you aware of how few people live in the San Luis Valley? No one is ignoring you, there simply aren't that many people that live here and, statistically, very few of whom would be on this forum - and even fewer still who would know the particulars of load-bearing statistics of local soil content.

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but please stop spamming this forum with new threads. Combine all of your questions into a single Blanca-related thread and go from there. In addition to keeping all of your replies in one place, it will be much more helpful for those in the future that want to read through the discussion.

Also, I'm saying this as someone who lives in the valley full-time and knows the local culture. This is coming from a place of genuinely trying to help you. But you need to know that you're coming across as awfully needy for someone intending to live off-grid in a place whose culture is steeped in self-reliance. I hope you understand that building and living out here means you're going to need to be okay with not knowing certain things until you're actually here to find out for yourself.

There are people in the valley that will be perfectly happy to help you along the way, but you have to temper your expectations and be willing to accept how things are done out here if you hope to have a good experience.

[Hyperviktor]

I didn't realize new threads were an issue , let alone considered as spam - I thought this is a good way to make my questions visible since they don't fit into other topics and keep them separate as they are separate topics. Besides, my questions doesn't need to be answered by someone from Blanca, there's San Luis, Alamosa, Fort Garland etc. SLV is pretty big with lots of people.

Now I don't want to seem like a jerk or anything, these are simply questions that come up way before we even consulted an engineer or started actual planning but I was somehow in a belief the anyone who builds a house starts with these steps as the ground and the foundation are the most critical parts of the house regardless of a location, especially in a remote area.

The needy part I would disagree with rather strongly - I'm just asking questions, thus gathering information about the area and with every answer I hopefully broaden my perspective about how I will need to manage things.


I'm perfectly okay with not knowing things ahead and figuring myself but since there is a forum the first step for me is to ask as probably other people went through the exact same procedures and already have some experiences.


All I'm planning to do is to build a nice holiday house and enjoy the area, the weather, nature whenever we're there - this just can't come across as needy, it can and has been done pretty much anywhere on the globe.

[interloper1138]

The entire population of the valley is around 47,000 people. For a place the size of Israel, that's extremely low population density. The valley's topography is actually quite diverse despite what you might think based on pictures of the valley floor. So people on here that might live in, say, Del Norte, or Saguache, or La Jara, etc will have drastically different parcels of land than yours due to much different moisture content due to proximity to rivers or creeks.

Gathering information and being proactive is great and I don't think anyone (myself included) is faulting you for that. But posting thread after thread and following up with responses like 'Anyone ?' on your own threads only a few days after you started them DOES come across as needy, regardless of whether or not that was your intent.

I understand your overall plan and I agree that the water concern is not as important in your specific situation, so I'm sympathetic to you being bewildered by the barrage of responses regarding that. I genuinely wish you success and happiness with your holiday home and your time here. I'm just trying to help you understand the culture here.

[Hyperviktor]

Thanks Inter, I'm just living in a fast paced environment in London so generally we measure time in minutes not days and it's pretty hard no to follow up - also I thought that would keep the topic more visible, at least on my end it looks like.

[COcheesehead]

Maybe the mods can start a separate SLV sub forum.

To answer the OP's question, yes get a soil test. The soils in Colorado are notorious. Follow the engineers advice in the report or you'll have problems. There are a lot of expansion issues, radon, under surface water, all kinds of things. Using piers in construction is common.

[Hyperviktor]

That's pretty useful, thanks!

[WinterJo]

Here is a handy tool that I used in my soil science class. Click on the menu button at the top left and when it drops down, put in your location. If you have the coordinates, it will be even better. You can then click on the map and it will tell you the soil composition of that location.

https://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/gmap/

[MountainEarth]

Have you contacted Costilla County Planning Department? They’ll have tons of resources for you. Phone # is 719-937-7668. https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cos...lanning-zoning