Why Buildings Need Foundations

What the heck is a foundation and why do all structures need one?

If all the earth was solid rock, life would be a lot simpler, but maybe a lot less interesting too. It is both a gravitational necessity and a source of job stability to structural and geotechnical engineers that all construction - great and small - sits upon the ground. And the ways in which we accomplish such a seemingly unexceptional feat are full of fascinating and unexpected details.

Practical Engineering is a YouTube channel about infrastructure and the human-made world around us. It is hosted, written, and produced by Grady Hillhouse. We have new videos posted regularly, so please subscribe for updates. If you enjoyed the video, hit that ‘like’ button, give us a comment, or watch another of our videos!

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DISCLAIMER
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This is not engineering advice. Everything here is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Contact an engineer licensed to practice in your area if you need professional advice or services. All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes.

SPECIAL THANKS
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This video is sponsored by Nebula.
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Shutterstock, Pond5, and Videoblocks.
Tonic and Energy by Elexive is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License
Producer/Writer/Host: Grady Hillhouse
Editor/Production Assistant: Wesley Crump
Script Editor: Ralph Crewe

[ocko]

Here's an idea for another video: landfills.

What kind of engineering goes into the design and construction of landfills ranging from Type 1-3 to tailings and impoundments. Permitting and operations would be neat to cover.

What kind of systems go into making these facilities safe and environmentally friendly?

What happens when landfills run out of space or encounter waste they weren't designed to handle?

How will new PFAS and PFOS regulations change the waste industry?

[Groaker]

Thank you for making engineering so interesting, understandable and accessible!

[LorileiSuesHonestReviews]

I have to say you were my dad's favorite thing to watch. He passed away in April of 2021 and was in hospice his last few months of life. I would come over daily to care for him and we would always watch your channel. Now watching your videos reminds me of that very special time I was blessed with, to spend with him in his last months. Thank you for your videos.

[d]

As a civil engineer who was thinking about building a house, I interviewed a builder locally and asked about getting geotechnical information on my site before building. Interestingly he said not to worry they had built many houses in that area and we did not need to do any investigation. Suspicions aroused I inquired about testing the foundations before finalizing the footings and he told me his foreman knew what to do. I had seento many foundation issues in homes to not want to have this happen to me so I decided right then that now way would I hire this guy. I even told him that if he was concerned about the extra cost I would pay the cost of the testing both prior to and during construction. It may seem like overkill for a house but to me the extra attention to the foundation would pay off in the future. Learned some hard lessons with soils in my time including a seam of fat clay that nobody caught until the clarifier floor cracked. Love your channel.

[lovegarbage]

I know a civil engineer who often told me that, 'I'm always telling architects that their creations need to touch the ground somewhere for purely structural reasons.'

[spicybaguette]

In the Netherlands where I live, piles are actually used quite commonly, even for residential buildings, because of the weak surface soil

[PAcifisti]

Here in Finland the bedrock is really close to the surface in pretty much the entire country. Usually just a meter or two deep, sometimes even less. This makes most foundations really easy to do. The most difficult job often is cutting away the bedrock to make room for the house / foundation.

[meltedyakkystick]

I always wondered why houses in cold areas typically have basements while houses in hot areas usually don't. I didn't think it had to do with the necessities of building a good foundation.

[Aedar]

This actually answered a lot of questions I had about "typical" american houses you see on TV and movies with crawlspaces. As I live in central europe with winters that can get very cold, I doubt there are any houses that just stand on wooden legs, as having any type of relatively open space under your house is very ineffective when you're trying to heat up your house during winter...

[ps]

I've got a science background but don't know the first thing about civil engineering. I find this channel endlessly fascinating... pitched at exactly the right level to help the non-specialist appreciate the awesome practical science that goes into real-world engineering. Clearly there is a vast amount of omitted detail behind your summaries, Grady, but that makes me appreciate your didactic style all the more -- it's not easy to make a specialist subject accessible to the lay person. Definitely one of my favourite channels in my "love of learning for the sake of it" category.

I also now know why my house is built on a raft foundation. There's literally nothing underneath except fifty metres of glacial sand dredged off the bottom of the Irish Sea by a marauding glacier and dumped onshore during the last ice age.

[punditgi]

Grady gives us a solid foundation of knowledge, as always!

[EliasProbst]

I'd be interested to hear about historical aspects of engineering. For example: my hometown in south-western Germany has a lot of really old houses - some of them close to 900y old, but still fully used for housing and renovated to modern infrastructural and energy standards. Most of them are timber framed and have been built long before "modern engineering" was a thing - yet they withstood for so long and might for quite some time to come.
The way they were built might be part of this secret, e.g. many of them moved together with their sinking foundations, have visible (but apparently not critical cracks that were simply filled during renovation, leaning walls, crooked floors rising 20-30cm in extreme cases from one side of the house to the other.

[amandajones]

This is the first time I've understood why basements are so common in the US (or at least, in US media) while being nearly unheard of in Australia. We have basically no frost line!

[Nibtarr]

I love that you can extrapolate why some parts in America have attics and others have basements through the information provided! Great video!

[Vinlyguyxx]

I always remember what my design studies teacher told me in high school.

“The most expensive and important things in a home are the roof and the foundation”

I’m pretty sure he was getting his roof done that year 💰🔥

[Reziac]

I'd like to see more of the specifics on how your house foundation gets rebuilt. Retrofits are a different challenge.

[Rayden]

Thank you for mentioning the "must be cost effective" part of engineering. Many people look at ancient structures like the Roman Colosseum and think we can't build stuff to last anymore. That's simply not true! We can build structures to last thousands of years, but why do that at all? The cost would be astronomical (we don't use slave labor anymore).

[flyer]

A coworker of mine with a bad foundation used a never ending collection of cheap bottle jacks to slowly support his house as it crumbled away. Hundreds of jacks and a few years later, there was literally a foot or two of free space all around. It was one of those ingenious situations that caused simultaneous amazement and head shaking!!

[natemorlock]

I'm a piledriver (Local 196) and enjoy seeing videos that relate to my line of work. My whole job pretty much revolves around putting piles in the ground. More videos like this please! Thanks

[BrttM]

My parents' house has a basement, but the ground is 7 feet of sand on top of a layer of clay, so the foundation was put on top of the clay. This means the preferred path of groundwater is through the basement. The original owners also increased the size of the house during construction, so 1/3 of the house doesn't have a basement under it, and that part sunk over the decades.