Are you going with any brick work? I went with 12" thick poured wall on the front of the house due to brick. 12"-4"brick=8"-6" sill plate=2" of play in case the wall is not square. Rember your footings are twice the wall thickness at least up here. 12" wall reqires 24" footings. I gc'd my home 6 years ago, it was an awesome experience, I saved a ton of money, but you need to do your homework before you hire any contractors. Make sure anyone that steps foot on your property to do any work provides you a certificate of insurance, any estimate provide is broken down to material list and costfor materials and labor cost and most importantly a time schedule on the esitmate. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.
and as Pete says ,if you use brick exterior ,you`ll need extra thickness of foundation wall, BUT that would be part of architetural and engineering drwgs/dtls...
Hi all, I know its been awhile, but I promised an update: The contractor agreed to do poured concrete for the same price, and both he and the architect validated what many of you said here- if the price is the same- go with the concrete just to be sure. After the basement and foundation are done, I am going to go the owner/builder route. I'm not going into this completely cold, we've been dabbling in Real Estate for about ten years now, and have done many kitchens, baths, windows, etc. This is my first time to build a house from the ground up, but I have lots of contacts, the most important one being my next door neighbor, who is doing almost the exact same project at the same time. He works in construction, and is bartering his services with all his contractor friends, then sending them my way. We're already well aware of the demands this will put on us, and are near exhaustion on a regular basis, but keeping the end prize in mind keeps us going. They are demolishing the old house as we speak, and we hope to start digging in a matter of weeks. Thanks again to all of you for the great advice, contacts, and detailed information. Someday in the future, I'll be posting my thanks from my nice, dry, basement......
