Foundation idea looking for thoughts on

[NailorVT]

Hello Everyone,

New member here looking for feedback on an idea I have. We are looking to build a new camp at our property in Northern New Hampshire, we like the floor plan for the 1.5 story cottage and will likley base it on that. My idea is to pour an arctic slab for the 20x30 footprint and then build a 30" wall to create a crawl space for storage and access to plumbing and wiring and then build the cabin on top of that.

Pros/cons, things I should be concerned with? Is it just a bad idea?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[NathanS]

There's no reason that wouldn't work, but it's probably not cost effective.

I would compare the price of that to a full foundation with a basement, or even a frost protected shallow foundation without the crawl space storage plus a separate building that could serve as garage/workshop/storage.

I did our house as a 4' frost wall with a slab on grade. We have 3 kids now and after building a garage/workshop with attic storage it's doable, but honestly a basement would be nice, and if I could magically trade 20-30k for it right now I would. Although, it below the water table for at least half the year.