Everything looked great. The house was built in 1989, single story 980 sq. ft. with a six inch foundation. It’s a costal climate so frost isn’t an issue. There were areas where I could reach under the foundation into the crawl space but there was nothing more than a few settling cracks and eveything looked good in the house. I could not get into the crawlspace but am going back. Code inspections were extremely lax even ten years ago so I’m thinking this was missed/not inspected.
With a 6" foundation, it sounds like the floor joists would be sitting almost on the ground…
Clarification; the foundation was six inches wide. The buyer backed out so I won’t be going back to do the crawl, bummer.
Remember, as foundations evolved, so did the advent of footings.
Stone and rubble foundations in old homes have no footings
Old brick foundations likely have no footings.
New pre-cast foundations need no footings. They sit on tamped gravel.
Permanent Wood Foundations (PWF’s) need no footings. They sit on tamped gravel or crushed stone.
Actually the gravel is the footing… an excellent one at that…depending on the size of the stone, typically 57, it has a compaction rate in the upper 90 percentile.
The other plus for using gravel is that when installed correctly, you will never have a basement leak as the footing itself serves as a natural drain.
The next custom home I build for myself will utilize gravel as footings.
Aw right! Aw Right! Yes, the gravel is the footing. For the PWF, it should be at least 5" thick and extend outwards from the wall at least 2’ (I believe; don’t have the documents out)
You can still have basement leaks if normal shrinkage cracks develop in the walls, have backfilled with native soils with poor drainage characteristics and have not installed a drainage membrane against the concrete wall. The gravel “footing” is a good addition to the whole water control system.