What Is the Importance of Groundworks in Construction?

When a project starts, the contractors, engineers, workers, and machinery operators are working hard, although you don’t see anything coming out of the ground or the actual building being built. This is the phase when the construction team works on the project’s foundation, including excavation and other groundwork. You may wonder what is the importance of groundworks in construction that takes so much time. Let’s discover!

What are Groundworks?

The term ‘groundworks’ refers to all the work, preparations, and alterations involved in preparing the ground and sub-surfaces to make it capable of tackling the project and its construction. In other words, groundwork involves all the activities and processes that are essential to construct an appropriate foundation and make it able to handle all future activities.

The groundworks are the first phase of any construction project that involves a wide range of activities. These include draining, water pipes, cabling, installing fibre optics, telephone lines, gas pipes, etc. The following are the processes most commonly included in any construction project’s groundwork.

Foundations

The term ‘foundation’ represents the part of a structural system that supports the whole building and transfers its load directly into the Earth. Several aspects are considered when constructing the foundations, as its bottom must be under the frost line. Its construction process varies depending upon various factors; only professional engineers can build it properly.

Trenching & Excavation

The groundworks include trenching and excavation for several reasons, like laying electric cables, pipes, sewage lines, etc. For your information, trenching and excavation are two different techniques of digging into the ground; all trenches fall in the excavation category, while not all excavations are trenching. Well, we need both when constructing a project for different purposes.

Reinstatement

Reinstatement involves all the operations or works used to revert or restore certain parts when constructing a project. When building a foundation or doing other groundwork, there is often a need to revert a few things.

Substructure

Substructure represents a structure under the screed or where no screed exists to transfer the building’s load to the ground. The following are the operations that come under the hood of the substructure, according to BCIS.

• Basement excavation and retaining walls
• Foundations including and to damp-proof course
• Lowest floor assembly

Sewer Construction

One of the essential parts of any building is its sewage system. The sewer in construction are the pipes used to carry and transfer wastewater and human waste away from the building. They are built in the groundwork that requires much attention since they must not be constructed incorrectly. This is because its repair is expensive and time-consuming.

Drainage

The definition defines drainage as the artificial or natural removal of subsurface or surface water from a particular area. Several piping lines are laid out and constructed in the groundworks to create a fully-working drainage system. Although its primary function is to bring and remove water from the building, it impacts the overall health of the building.

Basement Construction

According to the definition, the building part built under the ground level is considered a basement. A basement can be used for a wide variety of purposes, including storage, parking, and even living. Suppose there is a need for a basement in a building. It is designed and constructed in the ‘groundworks’ phase.

Landscaping

Landscaping is any operation that modifies a particular area and land to give attractive living elements. Most of the time, it refers to gardening, crafting the growing plants, and creating beautiful landscapes, but it’s more than that. It also involves sod work, creating driveways and installing retaining walls.

Why is Groundwork Important?

The following are the reasons the groundwork is important for a project and building.

1. Provide a Building Foundation: The groundwork is the beginning of any project. It provides a foundation and layout, and supervises the construction. After all, the whole load of the building is going to be on the foundation.
2. It runs the Building’s Operations: Several functions of the groundworks, like sewage, drainage system, etc., are important to keep a building running. If all the groundwork is done correctly, the building or the project will last longer.
3. Supervises Building’s Health: Appropriate groundworks are important to construct a building and maintain good building health. A building will function properly if the contractor has done proper groundwork.

The Stages of Groundworks

The following are the stages of groundwork.

Ground Investigation

The first stage in groundwork is to investigate the ground and site before starting the project for some legal requirements for the authorities. The site is tested for one-time use, potential issues, and stability in the ground investigation process. Once all the data is collected, it’s used to make an effective project design, estimate its capabilities, and other factors.

Site Clearance

Once the design is completed, the next step is to prepare the ground for the actual groundwork preparation. In this phase, the topsoil is removed with excavation up to a particular point. Depending upon the ground conditions, retaining walls may be built to form level development platforms.

Substructure and Ground Stabilisation

In the next phase, the substructure is constructed to transfer the building load to the ground, along with ground stabilisation. This phase includes excavations, foundations, damp-proofing membranes, etc. This phase also builds retaining walls with stone, reinforced concrete or timber, and brick or blockwork. Sheet piling is also used to construct retaining walls for basement excavation.

Services

The services represent activities like plumbing, wiring, sewer and drainage construction, etc. In this phase, the expert engineers design the building blueprint of everything involved in the groundwork so the building can operate appropriately once constructed. Everything related to usability is considered, which includes water flow, electricity, drainage, internet cabling, etc.

Landscape

Landscaping includes several procedures used to decorate the overall building’s look once constructed. It may involve levelling the ground, spreading grass in particular building sections, or creating driveways and retaining walls. In short, once the project is completed, landscaping focuses on the project’s decorative aspect and makes it aesthetically pleasing.