Until I moved to the Southwest,
I thought all houses sat on
foundation walls — if not on a
full basement, at least on
stemwalls.
Shortly after
moving to
Albuquerque, N.M., I got my first carpentry
job over the phone and was told to
show up at a particular address the next
morning. I drove up and down the street
several times looking for a hole in the
ground before I realized that this flat bare
spot of concrete next to a lumber pile was
where the house would be built.
Now after ten years of experience with
slab-on-grade construction, I have come
to appreciate its advantages as well as its
pitfalls. Short of having the slab "get
away"