Foundation installation in Mason City IA - footings set below the frost line

Cost guides put a full basement at roughly three to four times the cost of a slab with the same footprint. The concrete itself only about doubles, so most of the gap pays for digging, hauling dirt, forming walls, waterproofing and drainage. Those are national guide figures, not a Mason City price, and your own number comes from the written estimate.

Plan for the house to be heated, because a guide from Canada on these insulated slabs assumes the building is finished, backfilled and heated before freezing weather. The same guide says the design won't adequately protect a building left unheated for long stretches, so if yours will sit cold all winter, bring it up at the estimate.

It mostly comes down to local labor and how far the ready-mix has to travel. Poured walls go in much faster than block, which pays off where labor costs more and concrete is cheap, while block can come out cheaper where labor is cheap and concrete travels far. I'll tell you which way it leans for your job when I write the estimate.

They have to sit below the frost line, and the exact depth is a local number because the model residential code leaves it for each jurisdiction to set. We build to the figure the office handling your permit uses, not a number borrowed from somewhere else.

We handle the permit paperwork for the work we do and tell you up front which office it goes through. Cerro Gordo County requires a zoning permit to build any type of structure, and in Mason City permit applications go to the city's Development Services Department. Whether your job needs a particular permit is that office's call, so we check with them on each job instead of guessing.

Iowa State University Extension advises an exterior coating, usually an asphalt-based one, as standard damproofing on every block or concrete wall. If you're going with a basement, count on that coating being part of the job and ask to see it listed in the estimate.