当我们购买房屋（建于1907年）时，我从我的一个电工朋友那里呼吁将60安培升级为100安培服务。在新罕布什尔州一起工作，我们的许多项目都在装满壁架的网站上，当他告诉我时，他笑了笑：“在这里，您去尝试驾驶这只12英尺的铜接地杆。”

不超过10分钟后，我进来说：“多少杆应该保持在坡度上？”事实证明，我们的房屋正处于陡峭，沙利，窗台，斜坡的中间地面。

But for both new construction and existing homes, isn’t there a better way to figure out just what soil, rock, and water challenges your site will pose?

实际上，有三个优质的在线资源和其他几个，几乎可以从确定现场条件中获得所有机会和猜测。

Web Soil Survey

Being originally trained as an agronomist, I first went to our Vermont soil specialist, Thomas Villars. He sent me a Word document,“如何使用NRCS Web土壤调查获取有关代表性深度的特定地点信息到佛蒙特州的浅水桌。”(See Image #2, below.)

有几种不同的使用方法NRCS网络土壤调查，但是使用“感兴趣的区域”（AOI）选项卡将您置于晶体清除空中地图上，然后单击“土壤地图”选项卡以获取空中地图上的土壤类型覆盖层。在“土壤数据探索器”选项卡下是一个子标签“土壤特性和质量”，然后是另一个称为“水特征”的子标签，为您所感兴趣的领域提供了每种土壤类型的“深度到地下水位”。

USGS地下水手表

美国地质服务有与地下水有关的几个数据库。(See the image at the top of the page.) For builders and remodelers, the most useful of these resources are probably the Active Groundwater Level Network and the Long-term Groundwater Data Network.

Each is fed by records from over 850,000 wells drilled over the last 100 years. The data are pretty thin for Vermont and probably for other sparsely populated areas, but there’s tons of data for many highly populated regions of the U.S.

Local historical societies and the Library of Congress

Trying to piece together just why our section of Fairview Street in Brattleboro is a rarity — flat, with tons of fill — I got help at the Brattleboro Historical Society (BHS). I was directed to a web site called Old-Maps.com, where I found a great resource,“布拉特伯勒的早期地图”(see Image #3, below). This narrated collection of maps explains a lot about local land use, but strangely, very little about our section of Brattleboro.

快速前往BHS的旅行导致餐具柜充满了街道照片，也许更重要的是，我的志愿者（我的一个邻居）建议来自国会图书馆的网站，称为记录美国(see Image #4, below).

Amazingly, this database has hundreds of local newspapers — all digitized — for the years extending from 1789 to 1925. You have to be patient, but searching based on your street name or family names you know to have lived in homes for more than one generation can sometimes lead to the history of your lot’s use.

我的志愿者历史学家邻居说：“镇上最了解当地地质和水桌的两个家伙是史蒂夫·巴雷特（Steve Barrett）[公共工程主管]和戴夫·曼宁（Dave Manning）[一家著名和长期发掘公司的所有者]。你应该给他们打电话。”

[作者注：我没有时间对布拉特伯勒报纸进行彻底搜索，并与戴夫·曼宁（Dave Manning）和史蒂夫·巴雷特（Steve Barrett）交谈。但是我将通过向此博客发布评论来更新他们必须提供的内容。]

Finally, in my research on ground water table information, I came across this great Foundation Checklist from the book,“Basic Engineering for Builders”(see Image #5, below). A great resource to wrap up this survey of information resources to keep your basements dry.

除了担任GBA技术总监外，Peter Yost还是技术服务副总裁BuildingGreen在佛蒙特州的布拉特伯勒。他一直在建造，研究，教学，写作和咨询高性能房屋已有二十多年了。他是一位经验丰富的培训师和顾问，被公认为是年度NAHB教育家。您有建筑科学难题吗？接触Pete here。You can also注册BuildingGreen的电子邮件新闻通讯to get a free report on insulation, as well as regular posts from Peter.

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