SAND SOIL
Brian’s Tip Of The Day for October 9th was all about SAND.
WHAT IS SAND SOIL?
What does it mean that you have sand soil? Sand soil is composed of many irregular to rounded tiny grains. Sand, under a magnifying glass, looks like a what a bunch of gum balls would like in a glass jar. When you think of it like that, you can imagine there is a lot more air space between the rounded sandy soil particles. This large amount of air under the soil surface is what gives your soil the characteristic of being well-drained. This simply means that water moves quickly through the soil and air replaces it quickly. Without going into too much detail, a sand soil will replace water with air more quickly, and this is why sand soils dry out faster than clay soils.
IS SAND SOIL BAD?
Is this bad? Well that all depends. If you have sand soils beneath your homes foundation, or beneath your concrete slabs, this could be an issue with why those slabs are cracking. So if you are looking at fixing concrete, the soils beneath them may be a factor on how to go about fixing concrete cracks caused by those settling soils. Sand soils allow water to move more freely through them and this can cause the soils to wash out and create voids. Eventually, this can cause settlement and cracking of slabs.
