Hello Everyone,
We are looking at a house built in 1980 with a wood foundation. The basement is finished and I don’t see anything real concerning. I would definitely get an inspection but I am just wondering if anyone on here as a wood foundation or any experience with a wood foundation. Everything I read has mixed reviews – some people love them and some would not ever own a house with a wood foundation. Any thoughts/advice?
Thanks. Chad
Pretty sure James has wood foundation in the house he built recently. I’ll tag him @jamesholst so he sees this post.
J.
Wood foundations can be either the greatest thing or the worst thing depending on who and how it was put in. With a masonry foundation you have some room for error with waterproofing, drainage, etc. With wood if there is any error, the basement is wet. This is why I say make sure the original builder did his homework and knows what he is doing.
Pros: Warmer, cheaper to install, cheaper to heat, easier to make modifications
Cons: Shorter life cycle, Can have water problems,
Wood foundations can be either the greatest thing or the worst thing depending on who and how it was put in. With a masonry foundation you have some room for error with waterproofing, drainage, etc. With wood if there is any error, the basement is wet. This is why I say make sure the original builder did his homework and knows what he is doing.
Pros: Warmer, cheaper to install, cheaper to heat, easier to make modifications
Cons: Shorter life cycle, Can have water problems,
When you say shorter life cycle – How short are you talking? 100 years? Less? More?
Depends what you read I suppose
From the woodfoundations.ca
Testing by independent laboratories has shown that the lifespan of a PWF is about 112 years – about the same as a concrete foundation
When I researched a few years back I thought I read 80-100 years, but it all depends on if it was done right 
That is something only the builder can tell you
Pretty sure James has wood foundation in the house he built recently. I’ll tag him @jamesholst so he sees this post.
J.
We wanted to put in a wood foundation but the inspector in Richfield flat out refused to accept our plans without an engineer signing off on it. That would have added an large additional expense so we went with a block foundation instead.
What kind of soil are you located in? All sand and it was built correctly I see no problem. Heavy soil I would not even think about it. We built a twin home in all sand soil and we still only went down 4′. Did not want the headaches down the road.
Best to stay away from wood basements since moisture and rotting limit the life of a poor install to around 30 years, much like if you put a post in the ground. The 110 year life estimate above is for ideal conditions where one lives in the desert or has perfect drainage where the wood is kept absolutely dry.
The pro’s are as stated by Farmboy, but the biggest down side comes both with moisture presence and most likely, you will have trouble selling it when you decide to move next time.
My parents built a house in 1987 with a wood basement. It was a fairly new concept in the northern USA at that time. It’s been fine and they’ve never had the slightest problem with water issues. Ask about warranty, my parents got a 50 year warranty on theirs.
A lot of people label things as “bad” just because they are new. There was lots of bad mouthing of PEX plastic plumbing when it really started coming on the scene here in the USA, but what a lot of those guys didn’t realize was that PEX had been in use in Europe and Asia for decades. Nowadays you hardly see anyone using anything but PEX unless its a repair job where CU still makes sense.
Any material that is poorly installed will produce problems, so that’s no reason to choose one material over the other. Keep in mind that concrete is not waterproof on its own either, it’s porous and water will eventually seep through which is why older concrete basements are always damp.
Both concrete and wood need to be treated/coated/etc to make them waterproof and having a dry basement is a lot more about the measures taken to keep water from getting to the walls in the first place than it is about the wall material.
With the number of steps that quality builders use now to prep the basement on the outside and inside with coatings, drainage tile, etc I wouldn’t hesitate to go wood on a house I built.
Grouse
As many others have said: If it was designed & built with a good gravel/sand base, with a good drainage system you should be good to go.
With gravel/sand base soils you generally will have good drainage to keep the foundation dry. Contrary to that, if it was built on heavy/clay soils, it may or may not have been built correct with a good sump pump & drainage system.
Does the house have Gutters and down spouts?
Does the ground/landscaping around the foundation slope away from the home?
Speak to a few neighbors of this home, see what they have to say? (Many times homes in close proximity are built by the same builder/contractor with similar construction methods.) Neighbor generally talk to one another, if one has drainage issues, most will.
Make sure on any declarations/title paper work, you specifically ask if they have had any drainage &/or moisture problems in the basement/lower level?
Good Luck.
I’ve built a couple homes with them at the owners’ DEMAND and have lost some sleep thinking about them. Both were completed by very reputable contractors and I have extreme confidence in their workmanship. Warranty on them is 50 years to the original owner of the home, so as soon as they are sold to a second owner – DONE. So check the fine details.
They are not recommended for soil types that remain wet or constant water flow. Nearly every home has some form of water flow under the slab or along the foundation walls. Your drain tile/system should be designed to control the flow and exert it away without any form of hydrostatic pressure building. Hydrostatic pressure and treated lumber don’t fare well together.
The major factor in my opinion is all fasteners used. You hear very little to nothing discussed about them. Ther chemicals used in treatment is very harsh. Considering a deck uses a retention (rating) of about 25% or .25, direct bury lumber is mostly 60% and a foundation should be closer to 100%. In time, coated screws, galvanized, ceramic…..will all corrode and decay away.
I re-built part of a pole barn and we dug some of the 6×6 posts up. The posts had a .80 rating and all the screws for the rat boards were rusted off – yet the lumber was in great shape and that was only after about 18 years.
If the ground has a high clay content, I would do a poured crete. The force that clay eventually produces on a foundation is incredibly high.
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