Cold climate pier foundation plumbing solutions

[NathanS]

My wife and I are looking at putting in an offer on an unfinished 24x30 1.5 story cabin in central New York. Currently, the house is on piers (sono tube). The front half of the foundation area is enclosed with a slab, and concrete block stacked to grade, and then 2x6 framing above grade. The front wall of this room/basement has double doors big enough to fit a garden tractor or atv.

Unfortunately, the plumbing for the kitchen and bathroom are not in this room. The water lines and drain pipes are all exposed in the open pier area, and the septic pipe does not run into the ground through the enclosed space either. My wife is adamant that we have a contractor put in a full foundation under the house. We managed to have the county code inspector come out and review what needs to be finished for an occupancy permit. He seemed to think we could have someone put in a full basement under the house for $15,000 (!?). Sounds really low to me. I left messages with 3 local contractors to give me a ballpark.. hopefully I hear back from them tomorrow. If that 15k is accurate, we  could afford it. The inspector used to be a contractor, so I'm wondering if he's giving us the 2000 price of a full foundation, not the 2015 price.

I'm wondering if anyone has any other permanent suggestions. Keep in mind this is in the mountains in zone 5. We need to prepare for consecutive winter nights of -20F.

Thanks for any help.

[rayian]

A friend of mine has his main sewage pipe wrapped in heat tape for when he needs it and that runs horizontally for 20 feet or more. That's in the mountains here in western Canada so it does get cold.
Would it be possible to re-route the water lines through the internal walls. Another method I've read about is to build a box along the bottom of the walls where your baseboard is and have the waterlines run thru it. When you get to the cabinets the waterlines could run under the cabinets. Another possibility is to go up and thru the ceiling.
Good luck with that.

[NathanS]

Thanks for the advice. My brother in law is a Canadian plumber. He said 'wrap it in heat tape, insulate the crap out of it, and pray like hell it doesn't freeze.' Didn't seem like a great solution when he put it that way.

Aside from a full foundation, or heated crawl space, I figured the best thing to do was build an insulated and weather proof bulkhead that is open to interior heat. The final 45 degree drop would need heat tape and pipe insulation, though.

We decided to make a verbal offer based on putting in a full foundation. It sounds like our offer came in the range of 4-5 other offers over the past couple years and that the owner doesn't seem willing to budge. Oh well.. my wife and I would rather buy land and build, we're just trying to be pragmatic.

[jsahara24]

I have a camp set on piers in the tug hill and it gets cold up there.  Construction is ongoing and there are no "walls" covering the piers...

For the main waterline I used heat tape, covered in foam wrap insulation and then placed in a corrugated plastic pipe to 4.5' deep.  I used the box method along the walls for the interior pex waterlines.  I blow the waterlines out after each trip, takes about a half hour including draining the hot water heater...   

For the sewer I found that as long as you use sweeping 45* turns maximum it won't freeze. The shower trap is my biggest problem, and I use heat tape to solve that.....when i leave i use RV coolant in all the traps...

Good luck! 

[NathanS]

Thanks for the advice. We are looking to live there full time which is why we would be very nervous about exposed pipes.

I just got some call backs on full foundation estimates. The guy that was familiar with the process said the house has to be lifted, and it'd probably cost around 40k total. The other guy was less familiar with lifting houses, and thought 25-30k.

They were both in the 12-18k range on a full poured foundation without a house on top.

It seems like this place is going to be a no-go for us. Bummer. Glad I didn't take the inspectors word for it.

I really think we just need to wait for more land listings.

[Don_P]

I was biting my tongue wondering if I was that far off. we are nearly done with the foundation phase of holding up an old farmhouse and pouring a full basement, it'll end up in the 40-50k range. I've looked at another recently to give them a saving ballpark and came up at 45k. With a backhoe I can have a hole dug in a day or two, digging by hand while holding up a house takes me months. Remember that when you build. If a house is built on a bad foundation chances are it is better, cheaper and easier to have a lightening strike.

[NathanS]

Thanks Don. You're right. The place has been listed for 2-3 years. We told the realtor that we can't make it work with the price that a foundation would cost. I guess she decided to tell the guy what we would have been offering anyhow, because she called back and said he could drop the price to what works out as 68% of asking.

It makes me sick, the guy put so much money into some stuff, like T&G pine interior and cedar shingles. Probably 20k+ in decking, he also did well and septic.. I really wish that money had just gone into a proper foundation.

I didn't want to go too detailed in the original post, but the other thing that concerns me is while the sono tubes are all probably fine, one of the posts is a telephone pole, I pulled the dirt and grass away and it looks like there is not a footer! I could slide my fingers about an inch underneath the pole. Without that post the span between posts would be close to 15 feet, so it's got to be load bearing. Sure i can dig down 4 feet and pour a footer, but it makes me lose a lot of confidence in the structure. I wish I could make this place make sense.

Anyhow, sorry for the rant... buying land is stressful.

[rick91351]

I have exampled several times an A frame up here very close to us.  On a sort of post pier foundation that the banks will not lend on.  So they discounted the price to next to nothing.  Buyers still will not move on it because if you could afford to cash them out you would be buying a more attractive property.  Now after as many years as this poor little A frame has set the only thing that is going to happen with it one of these days is some one will buy it for the lot and bunch and burn the once cute little A frame.  However there is a problem there as there are a lot of parcels available...... So why go to all the work when...... just sayin' sometimes a cheap foundation is not so cheap....

[UK4X4]

If you take a look at Oljarheads project, he's presently going back and building a perimeter foundation in sections arround his post mounted cabin.

basicly a spread foooter with a short wall on top.

Guessing he'll probably leave in all the posts, and just add the support all the way arround, certainly think he won't have costed it at 45k....thats what my full concrete foundation cost inc the crushed rock and excavation rebar etc etc

really you are just trying to enclose the existing for the pipework, any extra load bearing parts you install will add to the security of the building

[NathanS]

We passed on the property. In the end, I think we'll be better off building from scratch.

I found http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/houseplans/hp-juneau-ak-example/view?topic=doctypes/designs-that-work/dtw-house-plans

Which had schematics for a pier house in Juneau. They built a plumbing chase out of  4-6 inches rigid foam board that would accept heat from inside the building.

I think the piers would have been fine as a cabin, but we are looking to live in something full time, so we want to be sure that we do what's best for the long term.

Thanks for all the advice.

[OlJarhead]

If you take a look at Oljarheads project, he's presently going back and building a perimeter foundation in sections arround his post mounted cabin.

basicly a spread foooter with a short wall on top.

Guessing he'll probably leave in all the posts, and just add the support all the way arround, certainly think he won't have costed it at 45k....thats what my full concrete foundation cost inc the crushed rock and excavation rebar etc etc

really you are just trying to enclose the existing for the pipework, any extra load bearing parts you install will add to the security of the building

Yup, leave in the posts and insulate the stub walls...cost?  Not $45k for the whole cabin with both foundations