Building A House Checklist: Groundwork and Foundation
The building blocks of your entire home.
This is one of the most important steps in building your home.
Pay attention and do everything you can to make sure things are perfect.
You don’t want to be retracing your steps and redoing everything.
Get ready to jump in because this is also the time you may find some hidden gems that you didn’t know were there.
We found old bottles, a thick cable, some electric wiring, and ledge. Lots and lots and lots of ledge!
Let’s dig in!
Sorry, the pun was there I had to take it!
*Just a note: this list is composed of the groundwork you will need to consider doing if you are NOT using city/public access lines. This is for building in a rural or country setting.
Clearing The Land
If your land is filled with trees, you’ll want to remove those in the area you wish to build, at least.
You may also want to remove some trees to give yourself a bigger lawn-or a field if you want.
Our property is called a “full wooded lot”; meaning the whole piece of land we owned was completely covered in trees.
We were able to use this to our advantage. Since we had so much land-more than 10 acres, we were able to have a logging company come in and cut the land and actually pay us for the wood they harvested!
We had them completely cut everything in the area we wanted our house and yard-more like a field, to be, and then the rest we had selected cut.
After the company took their portion of expenses, they wrote us a check for the rest!
We were able to put that money right back into building the house!
Once you have the trees cut, you’ll need to remove the debris and stumps left over. Unless you have the right equipment to do this yourself, you will need to hire someone to clean out the big stuff and smooth out the area.
The Foundation
This is what your entire house will sit on so you’ll want to make sure that it’s done right.
This was the longest process for us because we did it ourselves. Save yourself the headaches and hire someone if you can.
If you live in an area that gets a substantial amount of snow, you will most likely have your foundation dug into one big hole in the ground.
This will be your basement!
This is done to ensure that frost can’t come into your home and cause damage or try to move your house.
The other option is to have a slab. This will mean that the areas of your foundation will need to be flat and smooth.
Keep in mind that your entire house will be placed upon this section. You don’t want your house to move, crumble, or flood.
For these reasons, I HIGHLY recommend you hire a professional to not only do the groundwork but to also pour the foundation.
Even though we did the groundwork ourselves, we still had a professional double-check our work; on everything. We also did not pour our foundation ourselves and after watching the work involved in pouring a foundation, there is no way we would have been able to do it ourselves and have it come out right.
While the structure of your house is important, this groundwork is too, if not more so. All of these things will affect the overall use of your home and your land. Not to mention, some things can be more expensive if you have to go back and redo them because you messed up the first time.
Needless to say, if you are not confident in math or geometry, or you don’t like sweating profusely and being completely exhausted every day, hire a professional!
~MeganRelated Posts:
Building A House Checklist: Funding Your Home
Last Month
Diy Decor
Better Home Decor Shop
Black, metal standing rack with 2 basket-like shelves, small. Very versatile as you can use it for both decor and storage. Product is 10.2” x 10” x 4”