Stakeout

A stakeout is done by a surveyor.  It provides you the location of the house on the lot from corner to corner or from the perimeter of the house.  It can also give you property lines and corners.   It generally takes 3-4 hours to do a stakeout, however, it can take longer if you are in a rural area and a benchmark can’t be found.

Excavation

Excavation companies are needed for this process, whether for basements or for footers.

The process is actually getting the soil to an elevation in the ground to allow room for a basement or footer under the first floor. The footer is what the foundation is set on.   This process usually takes 1-2 days, possibly longer if you run into obstructions such as rock or any other foreign objects underground that have to be broken or removed.

If you only have footers, you still need to excavate, at a minimum, below the frost line in your region.   Doing so will allow the footer to remain stable during the freezing and thawing process and it won’t heave or crack under these conditions.

Footing (Footer)

A footing generally is designed by a structural engineer and is put in place by a concrete contractor.

Footer in construction is a measurement given to an indicated number of feet, length or height more often used in combination. It can also be described as a concrete reinforcement that is meant to support the groundwork of a home.

A footer is what the foundation is set on; it is a structural member that is transmitting the weight of the structure above to the soil beneath and most are reinforced with steel. (NEED CLARIFICATION) It can take up to 3 days to get a footer complete from excavation to inspection.

Foundation

The foundation is typically designed by a structural engineer.   The foundation sets on top of the footing and generally has structural steel.   In the homes we build, our foundations consist of concrete and steel, however, foundations can also be made of stone, cinder block or brick.

A foundation typically takes 3-4 days to construct from forming it up to stripping of the forms which is when the forms are taken down from the concrete wall. You have to have forms for concrete.

Waterproofing

There are contractors that specialize in waterproofing foundations.   We use a spray type in our homes because in our opinion, it provides better coverage and penetration of any cracks or crevices that may be present on the foundation.  Other methods to waterproof are roll on or brush on.  The product we use is a tar based spray.

Using the spray type usually takes about 3-4 hours to complete the process.  If you use the roll on method or the brush method it takes longer to complete, a couple of days to complete, depending on the size of your foundation.