building on a land filled rice paddy. time frame for land settling

[jackrossi]

Thanks everyone for your input on this, much appreciated.

[LaudJohn]

Square footings. If you are driving piles you don't need to worry about the ground settling as the footings will be resting on the piles, the ground floor beams on the footings and the ground floor pad on the beams. It's a more expensive route, because of the cost of the piles and the ground floor pad, but it will give you peace of mind and no need to wait.

If it's a large floor space and a ground floor pad will be costly, but as it's a commercial property that I guess won't have any expensive flooring, you could even skip the ground floor pad and keep some money back to repair if it sinks anywhere, just make sure that any underground piping is suspended from the beams rather than resting on the fill, as your pipes will split. Billy Bodgejob 101.

+1

This person knows what they are on about. I was going to offer the same advice.