I have a question for you guys. I have a friend in Washington that has been posting photos on facebook of her new house going up. It’s hard for me to tell without being there but it looks like they just poured the footers on top of the grade. This is not an accepted practice here; is this something you see commonly there. I’m assuming if you were in the crawlspace you would be able to see the footer unless they backfilled before framing. Also there is no housewrap of any kind until the bottom of the framing, and on OSB!. :shock: Unless they used some kind of a adhesive for flashing on the windows they don’t look correct either. The only thing they flashed was the trey. Let me know what you guys think. I haven’t said anything to her, except I asked her why they didn’t put any house wrap on.
Very typical construction up here in Washington. The lot is scraped to undisturbed ground, FOOTINGS poured, foundation poured, drains installed and backfilled. No issue with frost line.
They don’t put the house wrap on until the siding company is ready for installation. They put it up as they apply the siding. It could be 3-4 weeks or longer for spec homes.
Windows are almost always flashed / installed wrong up here. Some builders have learned, most have not. Same thing with the fiber cement siding.
Okay thanks Stephen, that’s what I figured they must be doing with the foundation. It’s too rocky here to do that in most areas. I can’t believe they just leave the OSB exposed like that, it seems like it would take forever to dry that house out before insulating. Plus why in the world would they not install the house wrap before the windows!!! You should be able to do pretty well doing moisture intrusion inspections there if that’s how they are building there.
Do you have a thermal camera and moisture meter? She is located in Olympia
The more I think about that foundation method the more I think that’s a bad practice. The footers should be dug into the undisturded soil.
So are you saying dig a trench, fill it with concrete and call it a FOOTING?.. without framing? Or dig it wide enough to put in framing? Either way it would be backfilled after the drains are put in. We are more concerned with proper drainage than anything up here. It is all on undisturbed soil.