Permanent Wood Foundations

SteelCity

Read an interesting article in Automated Builder about the not so common practice of permanent wood foundations in home construction. Apparently this is more common in areas like MI, WI, MN, and Canada.

Apparently they offer "more comfortable living space and lower energy needs"

Was just interested to see if any of guys had any experiance in this practice.

concretemasonry

Been around for about 40 years. Not as common now as it was 30 years ago because of the performance and "permanent" nature of the installations.

Long term creep and distortion, the installation requirements were to restrictive for most installers and the repair methods and costs were prohibitive.

The energy loss in a basement was over-emphasized because of the thermal stability of the soil, so energy saving for a basement were not correctl recognized.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

SteelCity

Good information, Thanks! Do you know what the primary means of fastening usually is/was for them (nails or screws?)

concretemasonry

Nails because screws did not have the shear strength.

The nails were not the problem as long as the special corrosion resistant ones were used. The old wood (CCA treated) was discontinued because of environmental problems (waste disposal, dust, etc.) and the need to treat cut ends with a toxic material. The newer wood treatment methods are more acceptable, but not proven yet. Wood still has and will have the property of creep (long term permanent distortion), which led to some problems and cracks in finished basements.

The panels also had to be set on a loose rock bases and could not be placed on comcrete. Not some of the new codes also require many more anchor bolts to provide continuiyt of the panel system.

__________________
Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

neolitic

Saw several go in, late 70's early 80's.
Only ones I was ever up close and
personal with were failures that we
replace/repaired.
Never looked stable to me, and
water proofing of that era wasn't
that well suited by my lights.
Lack of training and attention to
detail was very evident in what we
worked on.
Guy was framing truss and panel
one day...wood foundation expert
the next! Presto.

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