What Should be in Every New Home and Why --Part 1-- Insulated Foundation

Preface - The Builder and the Realtor
Usually, when looking at new homes, you’ll be dealing with the Realtor. A Realtor can be a valuable ally during the transaction and with facilitating your home shopping. But, in many cases, the Realtor won’t be able to adequately answer the tough questions you’ll want to ask if they weren't involved in the build process. If they can’t, ask to speak directly with the builder of any new home you’re considering buying. If the Realtor stands in the way, there’s a reason. The builder doesn’t want to deal with you.

Part 1 - Insulated Foundation
Your foundation should do more than just hold your house up. It should contribute to the energy efficiency of your home. It should be able to deal with moisture, reasonable earth movement, resist pests, and control outside environmental effects. If all of this is done, it allows the designers to utilize space they couldn’t otherwise and allows the home owner to access space they were uncomfortable entering before. It also adds to the comfort and longevity of the home.

Ask the builder: Does this home have a sealed, insulated foundation?
By using insulated concrete forms builders can eliminate the vents that let in insects, rodents and cold moist air. By adding a concrete slab that covers the dirt floor of the traditional crawl space and introducing conditioned air the “stack effect” can be eliminated as well. The stack effect is most severe when heating the home as the warmer indoor air rises up through the building and escapes through open windows or ventilation openings. The rising warm air reduces the pressure in the crawl space of the building, pulling cold, moist air through the foundation vents and into the home. As the air works its way up through the home it deposits moisture in the insulation under the floor, the carpet, the furniture and the inside of the walls. That moisture shortens the lifespan of your home, reduces the quality of the air you breathe and makes the home less comfortable. An added benefit to sealing and insulating the foundation and introducing conditioned air is that air vents and plumbing can be run underneath the home without being subject to outside air temperatures. By keeping these systems in conditioned space, energy consumption is greatly reduced.

Ask the builder: Does this home have foundation drains?
All homes should be built with foundation drains. Not all homes are built with foundation drains. It’s a shortcut that saves the builder a little time and a little money but that has a huge negative impact on the quality and longevity of your home. Without water management around the base of your home it is subject to more earth movement, erosion and water in the crawlspace. At a minimum, the builder should use a drainage system around a home but, even better, is a footing form that includes water and radon gas evacuation. By using a footing form drain, water is managed on both sides of the foundation wall and under the concrete slab.

Ask the Builder: Is this a monolithic pour foundation?

A monolithic pour is when all of the footings, foundation walls and earth slab are poured at one time. The biggest benefit of a monolithic pour is its strength. When all of the concrete is poured at the same time it all becomes one cohesive piece. Many builders set up plywood forms for the footings one day, and then come back the next day to pour concrete. The day following the footing pour they return to strip the forms. Later, they come back and repeat the process for the foundation walls. If they pour an earth slab, it is done in a third step. This method creates a foundation with a break between the footing and the walls which is not as strong or tightly sealed as a monolithic foundation. In addition, because a monolithic pour is completed in a single day, it requires the crew to drive to the job site one time rather than about ten times, and the concrete pump truck to travel to the jobsite one time rather than three. So, a monolithic pour makes a stronger foundation and does so with less environmental impact. Why wouldn’t every builder do it that way?

Ask the builder: Does this foundation take advantage of the thermal energy of the earth?
By excavating to the proper depth, the foundation of a home can take advantage of the constant 55 degree temperature of the earth. That means that when it is 25 degrees outside you have a head start on heating your home as the foundation collects that 55 degree temperature. Conversely, when it’s 90 degrees outside, you have a head start on cooling your house. It’s part of the energy efficiency of a home that many builders overlook.

Mark Mecklem - Miranda Homes

Next week: Part 2 - Framing.