More stories about Foundation

• A Masonry Chimney in Six Hours

  No one likes waiting for the mason, but manufactured zero-clearance fireplaces aren't the only alternative. A Connecticut manufacturer describes his innovative precast chimney system

• Q&A: Various Wheelchair Accessible Shower

  Q. We are building a new home on a slab foundation that is already poured. The customer uses a wheelchair and wants a curbless shower in a bathroom with a tiled floor. Is it possible to keep the bathroom floor level with the finish floors in the other roo

• Q&A: Is It Necessary to Compact Slab Sub-Base?

  Q. We need to pour a 24x24-foot concrete slab for an attached garage next to a precast foundation. The precast walls are 9 feet and 4 feet tall (see photo). Unfortunately, the trench overdig is 7 feet deep and as much as 4 feet wide in some places. We would prefer to avoid backfilling and tamping...

• Q&A: Sinking Foundation

  Q. I'm looking at a wood frame house with a block foundation that is settling. The basement wall sits on a 20-inch-wide concrete footing, but someone later poured a concrete brick shelf from footing to grade and then put brick veneer siding on the house.

• Getting Into Modular Construction

  Building modular homes speeds production, increases quality control, and reduces paperwork, according to this stick builder who made the switch.

• Q&A: Insulating a Foundation

  Q. To turn a small outbuilding into a living space, I plan to pour a slab floor within the existing 4-foot frostwall foundation. How much and what kind of insulation should I use for the foundation, and where should I place it -- under the slab or next to

• Trouble-Free Foundations for Expansive Soils

  When the soil moves, your foundation had better not. A Colorado builder shares his approach for building on difficult soils.

• Foundations & Site Work

  Building roads * Retaining walls * Footings * Walkout foundations * Stem walls * Slabs * Frost-protected foundations * Foundation repair * Half wall foundations * Tying-in to existing foundations * Foundation details

• Foundation Drainage

  Preventing frost action * Perimeter drain design * Details for removing roof runoff * Placing drain tile

• Seismic & High-Wind Framing

  Shear walls * Hold-downs * Foundation anchors * Hardware layout * Retrofitting seismic connectors & shear walls * Nailing shear panels * Wood-to-wood and wood-to-masonry roof connections * Roof diaphragm details