Concrete footings are placed on undisturbed soil or on an engineered pad consisting of compacted rock. The footings are designed to disperse the building’s load. Concrete foundation walls retain the earth around the building and with the addition of damp proofing applied to the outside face, keeps the building within dry. Where water courses or the building is built into a hill, water proofing membranes are advisable to alleviate hydrostatic pressure. A pipe is placed beside and along the perimeter of the footing known as the footing tile to also alleviate hydrostatic pressures. Basements are created as a result of footings placed below the frost line and the distance between the underside of floor joists and footings, makes for a habitable space. It’s only in the last thirty years that the basement has been turned into usable living space rather than the often damp utility area.

A new trend in foundation walls is the Insulated Concrete Form (ICF). Two foam panels separated with brackets to create a void in which concrete is poured along with reinforcing steel as specified by the manufacturer. 

Concrete piles are cylindrical in shape and are formed with a cardboard or plastic tube. These piles take the weight from posts and are often separate from the foundation system, supporting decks and fences. Concrete piles are also poured deep enough to avoid uplift from the frost line. Houses, cottages and sheds can be constructed over a series of piles laid out in a uniform manner where the distance between each pile takes into account the beam spans supporting the floor structure above.