Local contractors who pour solid concrete foundations have enough work to go around, for now anyway. That’s why Jim Rowe of Fastrac Foundations in Murrysville recently sent a potential customer from Cecil, Washington County, to fellow contractor Bob Camp of Turn Key Foundations in Peters. “I told her to call Bob, because why should I go from Murrysville to Cecil when he is five minutes away?” Rowe said. “Everybody is keeping busy. We’re not in a cutthroat business yet, although it could get that way in 10 years.” Ten contractors are building concrete foundation walls for homes and some small commercial buildings in southwestern Pennsylvania, Rowe said. Demand for concrete foundations has grown in recent years, as home builders and consumers learn about their advantages and adjust to changes in building standards. The foundations of most homes in the area are made of hollow concrete block and mortar, but solid concrete is more water-, termite- and fire-proof, the contractors say. Concrete foundations also take less time to lay, can be poured almost year-round and can be backfilled sooner than block. The solid foundations cost 8 to 10 percent more than block, home builder Jim Thomas said. For a 2,000-square-foot, two-story home, a concrete foundation would represent about $6,000 of the total cost, for example, he said. But that gap was wider, about 20 percent, some building professionals say, before the state’s Uniform Building Code took effect this year and required extra steps for contractors building block foundations. While the new code permits concrete block foundations, builders now must follow standards on the sizes, or thicknesses, to be used in various structures; also the block in many cases must be reinforced, said Doug Meshaw, director of association and member services at the Pennsylvania Builders Association. For new homes, Thomas said, the code dictates that voids in concrete block used in foundations must be filled with grout, or that supports such as pilasters — block columns reinforced with grout or steel — be used. Thomas has been building homes for 23 years, and using solid concrete foundations for 14 because of concerns about waterproofing and strength. When describing concrete foundations for customers, he says, “It’s like taking a bridge deck and turning it on edge. There would be 10 inches of solid concrete, and steel reinforcing bar every 2 feet horizontally and 5 or 6 feet vertically.” Here’s the process when Rowe’s and Thomas’s crews work on a new home: Aluminum forms for the foundation are laid, and the concrete is poured the next day. The substance sets overnight, the forms are removed and the builder goes to work. Waterproofing is sprayed onto the foundation, gravel for a French drain is laid and the foundation is backfilled before work starts on the rest of the home. “You can’t do that with concrete block,” Thomas said, because block foundation walls draw much of their strength from the weight of the structure above them. They could collapse if they were backfilled before much of the upper structure is built, he said. Solid concrete also is easier to work with as homes are equipped. “If you drill into a wall to mount a cabinet, say, you would have to drill into the mortar in a hollow concrete block foundation. The block might shatter. With a solid foundation, you can drill anywhere,” Rowe said. Rowe started his Fastrac Foundations in 1996, after having trouble finding a contractor to pour a solid concrete foundation for his house. He was a regional manager for a manufacturer of concrete pumping equipment, and saw the process used in other areas of the country. This year, Fastrac will pour as many as 160 foundations, most of them for homes. Rowe also has started a branch of the Concrete Foundation Association for local contractors, and is planning a December seminar that will include a workshop to teach code enforcement officers about the concept. Camp was vice president at a concrete pump manufacturing firm, and he started Turn Key in 2001 after moving back home to Peters Township, Allegheny County, from Minneapolis, Minn. Poured concrete foundations are standard in most of the rest of the country, he said, and while the Pittsburgh area has held onto concrete-block construction, that is changing. “There is no other choice, really,” he said. John Auciello, executive director of the Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh, said he’s seen more local homes built with concrete foundations in the past few years, and he attributes the change to a shortage of masons who lay block as well as the new construction standards. “There’s less personnel involved in pouring concrete into a mold, versus laying block,” he said. Tim Smith, regional manager for Modern Poured Walls of Pennsylvania, traces that shortage in part to building standards adopted in the last decade that require brick above grade, with no exposed block. “That required a lot more bricklayers,” he said, adding that many skilled masons turned from laying blocks to lighter, easier-to-handle bricks. Modern Poured Walls is headquartered in Wellington, Ohio, and has worked with Ryan Homes in the Cleveland area for several years. Ryan asked the owners to expand to Pittsburgh, because the home builder was having trouble finding a local firm to pour foundations, Smith said. The Pittsburgh branch opened in April 2003, and now has about 28 employees in an operation on Neville Island. A closer look at the form Fastrac Foundation Inc. employee Matt Cevario is pouring concrete into. Fastrac Foundations Inc. employees pour concrete into a form earlier this month in Hempfield Township. When the concrete dries, it will for the foundation for a new building Additional Information:

Concrete facts

Foundations aren’t the only new use these days for concrete, that basic building material made with cement, sand and gravel. Homes can be built almost entirely with it, or they can include decorative touches such as colored concrete floors or kitchen countertops. Insulated concrete forms can be used for the exterior walls. They’re synthetic blocks that fit together, and then are filled with concrete to insulate well and stand up against severe weather. Professionals in the cement and concrete industry say the use of ICF’s is relatively new in western Pennsylvania, but growing fast. Nationally, concrete home construction has increased in market share from 3 percent in 1993 to about 16 percent now, said Ryan Puckett of the Portland Cement Association. The use of colored and textured concrete is growing on walkways and even inside homes. Architects are calling for colored cement, special aggregates and surface treatments — such as using a chemical to slow cement from hardening, then hosing down the surface to expose some of the stone aggregate. Also, patterns can be stamped into colored concrete to make it look like inlaid stone.

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