How to Test Soil Compaction When Doing Construction

Knowing how to test for soil compaction is vital for the safety and stability of construction projects. Verifying that the soil is compacted enough allows building to continue without problems due to soil settling. Compaction tests can be done to either examine the density of the soil or by manually probing the soil. Soil probing tests must be done when the soil is fairly dry. Wet soil will give an inaccurate measurement of the degree of soil compaction.

Soil probe
Tape measure

Instructions

- 1
  Practice probing the soil to get a feel for the different degrees of compaction. Drive the soil probe into your lawn several times to get a feel for uncompacted soil. Try probing soil near a driveway or in an area that receives a lot of traffic.
- 2
  Probe the soil where construction will take place. Work in an X pattern of 5 like the arrangement of spots on a dice for the number five. Each insertion of the soil probe should be about two or three feet apart. Depending on the structure being built, you will need to probe the soil different depths. For a large heavy building such as one built with lots of concrete, you will need to probe the soil to at least 3 feet.
- 3
  Evaluate the compaction of the soil based on your probe tests. If the probe sinks into the dry soil fairly easily at all depths, then it is not very compacted. The more difficult it is to insert the soil probe the more compacted it is.

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