Concrete piers in 55 gal drums support I beams

Well, those are some honkin' big piers. The fact that they're in 55 gallon drums doesn't concern me. That's not really any different than using cardboard sonotubes. What concerns me about this is how is the craftsmanship? Seems to me that someone that uses barrels for piers is either super-creative or super-*******.

Are the piers situated deep enough to avoid frost heave? Here that is 36" and I assume it is much deeper in upstate NY.

Whether or not the size of the piers and the quantity of piers is adequate is something we can't tell you for sure. An engineer should be retained to do that. Variables such as the soil's bearing capacity, compaction, drainage, and the actual loads of the structure all must be considered to tell if this is any good.

Things that would turn me off would be very few piers, or lack of burial depth. It takes a lot of piers to support a home, and large piers spanned by steel beams isn't necessarily better than numerous piers and smaller beams of steel or wood.

If there aren't signs of settlement then that is a good thing.

If this place is 25 years old and you don't have any sagging, cracks opening up in the dry wall, no floors separating or cracking open, no settling on one side or the other i wouldn't worry about the pilings its on or how the drums might look,, Using barrels is no different them sonotubes, In all actuality they are better for the simple fact sonotubes don't come in that big of dia,, the barrels give you a larger foot print, a little over kill maybe,, but i can say this, a friend of mine who i helped build his place, he never had any settling, heaving, no cracks in the walls, no problems with the floors, doors or windows. we welded to 55's end to end to get down below the frost. set em down in the hole poured in a foot of concrete in the bottom and built from there,, i can be a particular as oh billy hell, seen to many place's so warped out of shape you had to fight to get in the front door and then god help ya getting it shut, or even opening a window.. like i said earlier if your not having any of the problems i mentioned above,,