Quality House Foundations: Avoid Structural Problems

What type of house foundation engineering is necessary to avoid structural issues and water problems in your basement? Here we look at some best practices when building a new home with a basement. This is the first of a three part series on house foundations. Be sure to check out the other two foundation videos below...

[dilvishpa]

Two comments:

1. If you wish to finish the basement, consider the fact that heating ducts will run below the floor joists, subtracting about 10” in height. If you want a true main level room feel in your finished basement, you should consider 10 foot, not 9 foot basement walls to have an 8+ foot finished basement ceiling. This also makes running and maintaining utilities in the basement ceiling easier, as you can avoid drilling through your floor joists. I have had electricians severly compromise joist strength by drilling for electrical cable passage too close to the bottom of joists.

2. Not shown here, but I saw you waterproof and insulate in your 64-day build video. The bitumous coating on the exterior is traditional, but also traditionally a waterproofing failure point. There are dimpled plastic flexible sheeting membranes that can be applied over top ofthe insulation and OVER the french drain system. This creates a much more effective waterproofing since it is unaffected by cracking walls, protects the french drain from silting up, and also protect the integrity of the of the exterior insulation.

My recommendations make the foundation slightly more expensive, but as you say, the foundation is the base on which the rest of the build rests.

[vincentanguoni]

Gotta love all the armchair builders!!!! Advising this professional!!!! Tonto!!!!

[situational.analysis]

Nice video. I like that you included the IRC's and the rebar grades. My preference for these poured foundations is to also install a perimeter drain tile over gravel to transport leached runoff. Let's keep the basement dry. (also either painted on, or rubber membrane).

[eagleairc]

I’m a noob but I thought this was really informative. Good stuff

[stipcrane]

Everyone should follow that practice, but the inspectors generally don't babysit builders in every step.
If the basement wall is designed as a retaining wall the floor attachment should not matter, but that means waiting 4 weeks for the concrete to reach design strength. Even with a retaining wall design, engineers have specified to pour the basement slab before backfilling to keep the wall from moving. I am a little skeptical about a 10" x 60" x 30' footing with four #5 bars moving anywhere, but I obey my orders anyway. Mostly.

[simeonsondgiven]

Very helpful and informative video. Thank you so much for taking your time and creating this with high quality.

[mellis]

Recommend editing to specify the reinforcement you showed does not help mitigate flexural cracking due to settlement. You need bars on TOP of the footing, 1.5”-2” from top in order to provide tensile resistance and prevent concrete footing from cracking due to possible settlement.

Overall great overview of foundation! :-)

[JT-irvw]

That rebar would not protect in the scenario you gave where you have erosion or settlement on the end, though the reinforcement in the wall would help resist that to a point. The tension side of the footing in that particular case would be at the top, thus you would need rebar at the top to resist that or cracking will occur. Rebar at the bottom is only going to resist positive bending moments, which will usually occur in cases where erosion/settlement takes place towards the middle of the beam. True best practice in this case would be double reinforcement where you have rebar 1.5" down from the top and 1.5" up from the bottom. Most of the time it is not needed though since it is quite rare to have a case where erosion or settlement happens at the end of a foundation, unless it's built on a very steep slope. Having said that, this foundation looks wonderfully built and assuming the soil conditions are fairly stable i'm sure it will live past the life expectancy of the home.

[All-In-ne]

Is it possible to built 200 sq. m. and 150 Sq. m. Ground floor and same built in areas of 2 more upper floors, and what structural aspects needs to be considered and advise me if there is a design or requirement showing the minimum requirement (rebar, thickness of shear wall ....) and is it possible to construct the slab of the basement with cyclopean concrete instead of using heavily reinforced RC Concrete?

[bidaloneverything]

You mention possible problems. Why do you not do something from square one to avoid known possible problems. What's wrong with "over-kill" measures. Or commercial/architectural grade standards applied to CHEAP residential standards.

[ascensionprotocols]

Great video. So informative! Much appreciated. 😎

[philjohnson-xzyj]

wow. this “foundation “ is incredibly minimal. cant believe that’s all the rebar required. i’ve been a iron worker for about 26 yrs. i’ve never see. a basement foundation with almost no rebar. 1 curtain #6 at 36” on center vertical . we have 2 curtains #8 @ 6” on center with # 6 horizontal bars at 8” on center on both layers ( curtains ) 3 # 5 in a footing. wow. we mostly do raft slabs. no footings. just a slab that is 24”-36” thick with #7 and the bottom layer at 6” on center with #5 top layer at 16” oc. this foundation as far as rebar is concerned would take my crew one day to tie in. we usually get around one ton (2, 000 lbs ) put in for each guy. doesn’t look like there is much more than 3 ton. i should mention i live in california. a basement like this out here has a minimum of 20 tons of rebar. i just finished one on coronado island. that foundation had 53 TONS of rebar and almost 26, 000 ft of post tension cable. thats just the slab. the wall’s supporting this slab had another 12 tons of rebar. i wish i could post some pictures of

[Mcv]

👍👍👍 I’d like to look at the second part of the video please

[PaulERuss]

I super love your content man! Very impressed! I will join your website in a couple of months.

[ag-omnr]

Excellent tutorial ! Well done, loved your voice !

[harpreetmaann]

Do you have any video on Complete House Construction from foundation till Roof

[dustinbrandel]

Old ww2 knowledge, iron rebar reinforced concrete structure is real good for withstanding bombardment, but bad for longterm building stability. Thats cause rebar rusts, leaking rust into the concrete, which leads to structural weakness over time. What u want is some nonrusting steel reinforcement.

[fricknfishn]

2018 IBC requires only 2 sets of #4 rebar.

[mattmathematics]

Is it normal for water to build up like that when you place a foundation? Wouldnt that pose an issue later on?

[rexd-c]

Hi, great video. need some advise. build a house in Ghana many years ago, its a split level into the side of a steep hill, having a lot of damp problem on the groundfloor, any solutions?