More Strong Foundation

Once the footer is poured and dried we had to remove all of the footer forms (wood). Then we had to dig through all of the sand that was "inside" the house. Since this lot has a lot of oak trees we had to remove all organic material (tree roots, etc) so that as the years pass the dead organic material doesn't leave air pockets which would lead to our slab sinking in places. Some people would just get rid of the old dirt and not do this sifting process, but that is not as cheap. Once we cleaned out all the exhisting dirt the footer wall built (not by us). Once the footer wall was set up we spent weeks pouring and compacting new dirt up to the appropriate level for the slab. The kids were fantastic with helping out with this entire process. They pulled out roots, they ran the compactor, the threw dirt, etc.