Concrete footings in Montrose CO - dug to the right depth and checked before the pour

Most people call us when a deck, an addition or a new wall is on the drawings and somebody has said the footings come first, and they do, because everything above sits on them. The price moves with how many footings you need, how deep and wide they have to be, how easy the ground is to dig and how close we can get a truck. The schedule turns less on the pour than on the wait for the utility locate and the inspection between digging and pouring. If you're planning the walls too, our foundation installation work picks up right where the footings leave off. When I come out, I'll tell you what I see and what we'd do, so you've got your own figure instead of a guess.

I start by finding out which building office covers your address, because that office sets how deep your footings go. We call in the utility locate before a shovel touches the ground, lay out where each footing goes, then dig down to firm soil at the depth the office set and square up the bottom of each hole. We line up the inspection so the hole gets checked before any concrete goes in, then set forms and rebar, the steel bars that keep the concrete from pulling apart, and pour. After that the concrete has to cure, which is the wait while it gains strength, before anyone builds on it. Nobody sees a footing again once the deck or wall is on top, and that's exactly why it's the last place I'd save you money. I'd rather spend it on the hole than on a nicer finish somewhere you'll actually look.

Footings often run into concrete that's already there. If a new post has to go through an old patio or slab, we use concrete cutting to open a clean hole instead of breaking out more than we need. If a wall or porch has already settled on a weak footing, foundation raising can bring it back up before we add anything new beside it.

Who signs off on your footings depends on where the property sits. Inside city limits, the city's Building Services issues building permits and does plan checks and inspections for the work on its list, which includes structural work. Out in the county, the county's Building Department handles plan review and inspections. Whether your footing needs a permit is that office's call, so we find out before we schedule, and where one's needed we help you sort out the paperwork.

The ground here is the other reason I won't pour into a hole nobody's checked. Along Cedar Creek and Montrose Arroyo there's a sediment tied to sinkholes and hollow spots underground that can badly damage buildings, and every big city in Colorado sits partly on clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry, which we run into on jobs in Montrose and Delta alike.