Footings, the beginning of a basement

A crucial step in the home building process has started! The footings for the basement walls are poured and are ready to go. I had absolutely no clue what a footing was when we started this process. What, you don't either?! A footing is the base for the concrete walls that will soon be our basement. The job of the footing is to take the weight of the house and also to help minimize the house shifting and settling over time. So basically its pretty important unless you don't care about your house sinking into the ground. Which of course we do care, just so there isn't any confusion.

Footings seem to be the underdog of home construction. Most people outside of home construction probably don't even know they exist in their homes. Like I mentioned before, they are a crucial step for any home.

We were both working the day the footings so we didn't get to see them in action but basically the concrete people create a form out of wood and filled it with concrete and leveled it off. That's like the pure basics of what they did and I am sure they did more than that because there are 2 drainage tubes and rebar sticking out in some areas, I just don't know what all was involved. They finished the entire perimeter and the next day came back to pour the interior load barring points.

Notice all the water down in there? We did too but not to worry, a few days of sunshine should dry it up and since the concrete walls have to sit and cure for 2 weeks it won't delay anything.

This is a view down into the basement towards the West.

Kyle and his little sister Jamie checking out the footings

Another view in the basement towards the West, this time with alittle closer look at the interior footings that are waiting to be poured

This is a view of the kitchen "bump out" section

All those cement trucks really did a number on the soil. It was a little rainy the day before and the day after so we have some nice ruts in the ground.

The concrete walls were poured yesterday and next time we will show you how awesome it now looks!