Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Wooden Foundations

There was a time in the past (thirty years ago or more?) when for about ten minutes, foundations made of wood rather than poured concrete or concrete block were all the rage. What ever became of that?

termites?

I don't know about other places, but in B.C. the banks won't give you a mortgage if the house has a wooden foundation

never heard of such a thing. pressure treated posts maybe but not whole foundations.

Pressure treated lumber is used for remote cabins in Alaska due to the difficulty of transporting concrete and block. It can be made to work and has an appeal in certain applications.

That said, there is something to be said for a heavy solid foundation.

Banks won't loan money on 'em in AK either. Doubt if anywhere. And even pressure treated wood will rot eventually, more so in wet conditions with poor soil drainage probably.

2 of the 3 little pigs had problems with wood.

The treated wood works, of course.
I'm in a house with close to a hundred year old concrete foundation, I'll stay with concrete.

No way, I would build on a ground contact wood foundation. Even treated will rot in no time. One option is to pour concrete piers, then treated posts on top of the piers. The piers need to be a min. of 18" off the ground and posts will last a long time if protected from the elements. The posts don't set in the concrete but in a bracket attached to the pier.

The advantage is that one man can build a foundation in this way, and the forms for the piers can all be cut to level height very easily. I don't know about the loan requirements on such a foundation but I would bet it would be hard to get one.

South central Idaho was settled starting about 1905. The settlers, homesteading under the new Cary Act, needed to get houses up fast to prove up on the land. There are still quite a few of those houses around the Twin Falls area build on timbers instead of rock or concrete. It's high desert land so it's much drier than most parts of the country. Timbers will last longer. There are some termites but nothing like you have in most parts of the country. No, banks won't loan on one.

I remember those too. At the time we had a lakeshore cabin at the bottom of a steep slope. It would have sucked to do a traditional foundation, especially DIY.

The wood foundations had specific methods of doing everything, including having a good gravel perimeter foundation, a two layer 2x12 treated bottom plate, 2x12 treated studs 16" on center, and 3/4" treated plywood sheathing. There was also some sort of membrane on the outside with gravel outside of that for drainage.

Seemed pretty well designed to me. But concrete or block would be better

Yup. If done to specs, wood foundations are rated 100 years. Built a bunch of them over the last 25-30 years. Was recently in one of the first, and no sign of age/damage......

Morton will build a church, house, car wash, what ever you will pay for with treated poles.

One thing about a house, the roof drains the water away from the foundation. The dryer it is, the better for the foundation.

The treated wood for a basement is a better grade than the common grade.

We build alot of houses here on the coast on pilings, no concrete footers or piers. This is in either pure sand or sandy soil. The pilings are "friction pilings". They don't set on anything.

I am typing this while watching tv in my pressure treated wood basement. Fully insulated, drywall finished. Very comfortable year around. Built it in 1990. Very happy with it. Certainly wouldn't trade it for concrete block or poured walls. Al

Wood is really durable as long as the moisture content is controlled. The critical range is about 25% plus or minus about 8%. Drier or wetter and it will not rot. Problem with wetter is the wicking usually goes just so far and creates a zone of just right to rot wood.

Even treated wood in the right moisture conditions will rot incredibly fast... as little as 7 years, or about the same as cedar in direct ground contact.

There are a lot of brands and "Chemonite" was popular here for quite a while outside inspected jurisdictions. Most are copper, zinc, and arsenic based to cover most of the bugs and molds, but it will flush out of the wood if there is enough water and allow rot to take over.

I was asked to look at one quite a few years ago below Good Time Charlies and it had rotted out in 10 years due to poor construction techniques.

Done right in well-drained soil it should not be a problem. AK rainfall is enough to make me think it would be a poor choice almost everywhere.

certain woods work better then others. here in north Idaho I have taken down 100 year old log houses with old growth larch sil logs that had 0 rot. was shown larch fence post on a neighbors ranch that were sunk in 1899. neighbor's grandfather soaked them in brine. put in the ground wet and strung wet because after they dried they were like rock.

Seen too many of them where gophers and groundhogs built up mounds of dirt underneath them, eventually burring the floor joist and termites destroyed the entire floor. Doesn't work well in California.

Phil

The bank loaned me 140K to build my house on treated 8x8 posts. Terminix wouldn't treat it for termites, though. The posts may be set in concrete---I can't remember for sure.

I had a home built in 1992 with a wood foundation and it was great, but it was also done right. Sold it in 2004 for a healthy profit and it's sold at least twice that I know of since then. Bank didn't bat an eye lending money when I was involved and it went through two fine tooth comb inspections with flying colors. That basement was the most comfortable of any of the homes we've owned and was a piece of cake to finish.