Saving time and money with pier construction

Most homes I have ever seen have a concrete slab foundation or retaining wall. For this project I wanted to avoid that for several reasons:

1- Concrete is expensive and energy intensive. I havent a good enough pour to try a whole foundation on my own.
2- Piers let me choose my height above the ground. This is critical when you get many feet of rain in a year.
3- Piers speed construction and allow me to choose different plumbing and electrical inlets after the building is up. You cant do that with a poured slab.
4- I think in metal and steel beams make me feel good. If you saw my 1 year old wood fence falling down you would understand why I would rather gasify wood to power a welder that melts metal. For me its just a better result.
5- With piers I can disassemble the house if I want to move it. Pretty much everything except the floor will be modular.

Tags: demo house

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Permalink Reply by Steve Unruh on September 1, 2009 at 4:11pm: Hello Ben
What style of pier construction are you looking to do?
Six foot sunk into the ground and concreted into place treated timbers or posts?
Pour in place paper tube formed concrete piers?
Or set on 2' x 2' concrete pads short treated posts? (half my house)
Regards
SteveU.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Wayne Baker on September 13, 2009 at 8:09am: Hello,
In 2005 I placed my home on piers. 16" by 4 foot deep. No tubes. I just rented a bobcat with a 16" post hole digger. About $150 for the day! Punched the holes and had the concrete delivered. Three days latter I started construction on the piers. Quick and easy. Later when I build the real house, I will remove the one I am in now, without having a foundation to mess with.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Doug Leidy on September 17, 2009 at 1:55pm: You may want to reconsider when it comes to cutting corners on you foundation. Piers will work but you will need to fill in the spaces between the piers to make it more efficient. Off grid houses need to maximize everything from the crawl space to the positioning of the house to the sun and smaller things like a bead of caulk at every possible place. The small details will make you house less of an energy waster. I made a typical brick foundation all the way around and the put readbar every 5 ft and concreated the wall to the ground. That way I had the same pier effect the plans called for with the add brick for insulation.

I too am building my own house. I'm completely Off Grid using solar panels and Outbacks inverters and chargers. Nice stuff. If you need advice just ask...I maybe able to give you some practical advice instead of the theory. Enjoy; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by JSGolightly on September 23, 2009 at 2:18pm: i like the idea's you've got thus far with the pier set up

you might wanna check out this for further green ideas:

http://www.yestermorrow.org/; ▶ Reply to This