Foundation vs. Slab, the Dummies Version

Concrete slab

Perhaps no step in the construction of a building is as important as providing a stable foundation. Heck, even today's dumbass understands that, because eHow.com's Lacy Enderson says so right up front in her introduction: "A house is only as strong and stable as the foundation it is built upon." Based on her long history of dumbass content regarding home construction, however, we were skeptical of Lacy's qualifications for providing the instructions in "How to Build Your Own Home Slab."¹ It turns out that... well, we were right. As usual, Lacy hadn't the slightest clue about the topic, and merely reworded some of the content from an unnamed but doubtless more authoritative site. As a result, we doubt that anyone stupid enough to follow her instructions will end up with a stable foundation...

There are a lot of clues to Enderson's lack of knowledge. Although we admit that no one at the Antisocial Network has ever poured his or her own slab, we all agree that Lacy's blithe claim that, "Building your own home foundation is a simple procedure requiring only a few minor skills..." meets the very definition of "disingenuous." Here are a few of Enderson's more interesting procedural instructions, beginning with the layout process.

"Determine where the corners of your home slab will lie and place stakes in each corner. Use a sledge hammer to pound in 12-inch wooden stakes. These stakes outline the exterior of the house."

Hmmmmm, no squaring of sides, no mason's line, just "corners." We also thought it might be a good idea to grade and level the site first... Step one is followed by digging instructions: "Dig your footing holes 12-inches deep. Use a shovel. This trench will be dug all the way around the perimeter of your home, and will create the exterior walls." Punctuation problems notwithstanding, Lacy has clearly never dug a 12-inch trench completely around a building's perimeter with a shovel. We suggest renting a Ditch Witch®, personally; not to mention that 1) the depth of the footings should reflect the the frost line instead of some arbitrary dimension and 2) Lacy says nothing about its width. Just the first two steps in the post have revealed Enderson's total ignorance of her topic. The rest of the steps are equal to the first two in their level of dumbassery, containing such instructions as

"Use a level to make sure all the form boards are the same height... Nail... stakes to the boards using double headed nails"

That's weird: we figured you'd level the forms after they had been staked. But she goes on (and on), with plenty of impossible suggestions and mangled copy-reword-paste sections until we encounter

"Rent a concrete truck if your house slab is large, or just a line pump if it is small..."

...which prompted one staffer to ask, "Who the heck rents a concrete truck? Don't you just buy a few yards of concrete and have it delivered?" and another to inquire, "Why would you need a line pump if you don't have a truck?" And finally, Lacy surprised the bejeepers out of everyone with this little bon mot:

"Continue filling the home slab area with a 2-inch layer of concrete..."

We were flabbergasted, to say the least, that Enderson got away with that bullshit instruction. A standard slab is at least twice that thick! There's no mention at all of plumbing layouts or of basements, yet this dumbass's rubbish still got published! Small wonder no one pays any attention to eHow if a series of Dumbass of the Day candidates just churned out bullshit like Lacy's.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_5007269_build-own-home-slab.html

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DDIY - FOUNDATIONS