Barndominium Foundations in Lake Wales, FL

Which Lake Wales sand is under your living floor

The soils map in the city's Comprehensive Plan lists Candler sand, Tavares fine sand, Astatula sand, Pomona fine sand, Immokalee sand, Pomello fine sand and Smyrna and Myakka fine sands in and around town. Two very different grounds share one town. On ridge sands like Candler and Astatula, a South Florida Water Management District study puts the seasonal high water table more than six feet down all year. On flatwoods sands like Immokalee, Myakka and Smyrna, the same study puts it six to eighteen inches below the surface for about four months a year.

For a barn, that gap mainly changes pad prep. For a barndominium foundation, it changes how high the floor sits and whether a stem wall makes sense. Look your parcel up on the NRCS Web Soil Survey before the engineer draws the sheet. The barndominium foundations page covers the job countywide, and the barndominium foundation guide compares monolithic and stem wall in full.

Rolling Ridge lots and the stem-wall question

USGS calls the Lake Wales Ridge the highest and longest ridge in Polk County, up to about 305 feet, with sinkhole lakes, depressions and closed basins along it. The city describes itself as rolling hills on the highest ground in peninsular Florida. On a lot like that, the ground under a house footprint can fall from one corner to another.

A monolithic slab handles a gentle fall with a little cut on the high side and compacted fill on the low side. When the fall is steeper, a stem wall can carry the low side while the footing stays on cut ground. The fill limits shape that choice: the residential code caps fill under a slab at 24 inches of clean sand unless approved, and the Building volume calls for a geotechnical investigation past 12 inches of compacted fill under a shallow foundation. The residential code has no matching 12-inch rule, so the engineer decides on testing for a house. Shoot the grade at all four corners before you pick a kit size, and tell the engineer about any depression on the lot. State sinkhole records list Lake Wales locations, though some entries are septic or water main collapses.

House, garage apron and driveway on one Lake Wales site plan

The City of Lake Wales Building Division at 201 W. Central Ave. lists new buildings, driveways and parking pads, and patios and decks among work that needs a permit. A barndominium can come with all four: the house slab, a garage or shop apron, a driveway in from the road and a back porch. Draw them on one site plan so the city sees the whole job and you don't file a second permit for the apron later.

It also helps the pour. When the apron and porch are drawn up front, we can form them with the house or plan a clean joint where they meet it. Outside city limits, the Polk County Building Division in Bartow reviews the barndominium, and its minimum set includes a site plan, foundation plan, framing or truss layout, elevations and a floor plan.

Citrus land around Lake Wales doesn't change the residential permit. The farm-building exemption covers nonresidential buildings only; our farm exemption guide has the test.

Wet flatwoods lots: raising the pad and timing the pour

On the flatwoods side of Lake Wales, the water table can sit within a foot and a half of the surface for months. A house floor needs dry ground under the vapor sheet, so the pad comes up with clean compacted sand, and the engineer decides whether the deeper fill gets density tests. The Polk County Water Atlas notes that compacted soil takes in rain less efficiently, so standing water can appear after a storm. Grade the pad to shed water away from the forms.

The order of work stays the same on either soil: plumbing rough-in, then the pest company's termite treatment, then the 6-mil sheet, then steel. Rain on treated soil before the sheet is down means treating again, which bites hardest on a wet lot in summer. So we book the pest visit, the sheet and the pour close together, and on flatwoods ground we'd rather slip a day than pour onto a soft pad.