Foundation Basics | 12 Steps of Building a Home
Welcome back to month four of our twelve month series: 12 Steps of Building a Home! Today we’re going to talk a bit about home foundations. This isn’t the most glamorous part of building a home, but it is arguably the most important. Let’s dig in (pun *fully* intended).
WHAT DOES A FOUNDATION DO?
Believe it or not, there is so much more to a home foundation than just holding the house up. A well built foundation will keep out moisture, provide insulation, and most importantly, last forever. There are no shortcuts to be taken here. Your home foundation will need to include steel-reinforced walls and strong concrete footings. In years gone by foundations would be made of all sorts of materials, but this steel-and-concrete combination is the modern standard.
HOW IS A FOUNDATION LAID?
Home foundations are each unique. It takes some serious work to study soil conditions, water tables, elevation and more, all before a foundation is even poured. Luckily you likely won’t need to deal with this phase of the home build much. Professional teams will come in and make sure that each piece of your foundation plans will keep your house sturdy and warm for the foreseeable future.
FOUNDATION DETAILS
There are a few details of planning a foundation that you will need to give an opinion on. Do you plan on having a finished basement? A crawl space? How much storage do you need? If you have a basement do you want an exit door or window wells? Are you hoping to have a deck? We’ll go over all of these questions and more with you and your contracting team so no need to answer them all now.
Without a well-planned and strong foundation, your home could be at risk. It’s not a step of the home building process that can be rushed, and that can be a point of frustration for some people. You might visit the homesite during the foundation process and think that nothing is happening, but there’s often lots of calculations and studying going on behind the scenes! The Liz Powell Design team works closely with experienced builders to make sure that each step of the process building a new home is painless for you!
Please send us a message if you have more questions about building a home!
|With love, Liz
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