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Habitat for Humanity How to Build a House: Foundation Fundamentals

Establishing a sound connection between the house, the foundation, and the earth is crucial. These foundation fundamentals can help get you started.

by Larry Haun

Habitat for Humanity How to Build a House: Foundation Fundamentals

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All across this country, in hundreds of towns an cities, people from all walks of life are working with Habitat for Humanity to build decent, modest housing. In the last 25 years, more than 100,000 affordable homes have been built in America and in other countries by Habitat for Humanity affiliates.

If Habitat for Humanity can build affordable homes, why can't anyone? In Habitat for Humanity How to Build a House, Habitat volunteer and Fine Homebuilding contributor Larry Haun provides step-by-step instructions for building a house from the ground up. For beginners and professionals alike, the book is filled with tips that come from Larry's four decades of experience.

In this excerpt from Chapter 3: Firm, Flat, Level, and Square -- Foundations and Floors, you'll learn how to form and pour footings and how to build the foundation walls.

Larry Haun worked as a carpenter in southern California for four decades, teaching apprentice carpenters at night school in a community college for more than 20 years. Larry is the author of The Very Efficient Carpenter (book and video tapes) and Homebuilding Basics: Carpentry, both published by The Taunton Press. Photos by: Randy O'Rourke; drawings by: Mario Ferro

From BookHabitat for Humanity How to Build a House , pp. 42-51 October 1, 2002