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Thread: Foundation

  1. #1
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    Foundation

    How many of you are doing your own foundation?
    How many of you are having professionals do it?
    Are any of you doing a half and half?
    Are you doing the digging yourself? Are you setting up footers?
    For those of you who have already gotten past this point, what option did you chose and if you did it on your own how complicated was it?

  2. #2
    LHBA Member ChainsawGrandpa's Avatar
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    foundation work

    Foundations are the second easiest thing to get right on a log home. Care to guess the easiest? ;-) G'pa

  3. #3
    LHBA Member hemlock77's Avatar
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    foundation

    In our case with the walkout basement, we chose to have the pro's do it. [size= x-small]The deciding factor was because we are right in the middle where there was a glacier during the last ice age. We don't just have just rocks, we have boulders, a couple were as big as a car. Here is a sample pic [/size] [size= x-small]Stu[/size] [size= x-small]http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u64/hemlock77/ [/size]

  4. #4

    foundations

    we did half and half. we paid a local to do the excavation and we did the rest (we did hire a cement guy to act as our consultant to keep us from making any terrible mistakes, and for each cement pour (we've had 3....) we also hired a pump truck which made it a breeze:)

  5. #5

    half and half

    I don't have any digging equipment so will contract out that portion of it. But the rest I will do myself. Doing your own foundation is one of the easiest ways to save money, as hiring a pro to do it will cost more then double then if you do it yourself, and its not too hard. I do strongly recommend a pump truck as, like Panderson says, makes the job a breeze. What forms did you use Panderson? Around here everyone uses Duraform, though there are quite a few out there.

  6. #6
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    i hired mine out, thinking

    i hired mine out, thinking "i've learned so much, and will be doing so much, the one thing that can't be screwed up is the foundation!" Was quite pleased with it, too.

  7. #7

    foundations

    I don't have any digging equipment so will contract out that portion of it. But the rest I will do myself. Doing your own foundation is one of the easiest ways to save money, as hiring a pro to do it will cost more then double then if you do it yourself, and its not too hard. I do strongly recommend a pump truck as, like Panderson says, makes the job a breeze. What forms did you use Panderson? Around here everyone uses Duraform, though there are quite a few out there.
    R_Cullen, we did not use Duraform we actually made our own forms out of 2x10's for our footings (then we re-purposed the 2x10's for our scaffolding...).
    then for our frost walls and walk out basement walls we used ICF (went with FOX BLOCKS.....loved them)
    and you're right! doing foundations yourself sure does save a lot of $$!!

  8. #8
    LHBA Member dvb's Avatar
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    ICF Foundation

    My wife and I did our own foundation. It was really pretty simple if you understand the basics about concrete and rebar placement. We used Insulated Concrete Forms and are very pleased with them. You just have to make sure everything is level, straight, and square. Depending on where you are building and personal preference, the class will teach another option for your foundation that is really simple.

  9. #9
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    Question about Forms for foundation

    I was thinking about having the dig hired as I too do not have the equipment. But I would like to form it myself and also hire a cement truck as it would be so much quicker than having to mix it urself and all that stuff.
    I will admitt I am a bit intimidated about doing it as I have never done it before and do not have a lot of knowledge on this. I do have a book on foundations and concrete but it's packed away in a trailer in Minneapolis which is 2 hours away from me. Maybe when I go to get hubby this weekend We will dig them out.
    For the forms! Are you able to buy them or do you need to build them yourself? If you can buy them are they really expensive? What tools does it require I buy or rent if possible to do my own foundation?

  10. #10
    LHBA Member StressMan79's Avatar
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    foundation Q's

    I did a strange foundation--filled CMU block. If I had to do again, I would have went with ICF. Block were more expensive than I thought, heavy, and you could not pour them with a cement truck, so I mixed (in a 5 cF mixer) the 4 yd required to fill them all (only 24x24). I'll hire the floor pour (my construction is nonstandard) and I hired most of the excavation, although Finish excavation was done by hand (I had some members come by and help for that!). Actually members helped with setting the block, mixing the crete and filling the block, not to mention setting logs on top.

    -Peter

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