Foundation installation in San Gabriel CA - footings built for the soil they sit on

Most foundation calls come from people with plans in hand and a lot that's still dirt, and the footings are the one part nobody sees again once the framing goes up. The price moves with the size of the footprint, how deep and wide the footings have to be, how much digging and hauling the lot needs and anything the engineer or soils report adds. The schedule turns mostly on how fast your plans clear the city, then on weather and inspections. If you also want a slab poured over the footings, our slab foundation building page covers that part. Before work starts, we settle with you who handles any permit the city asks for and what it needs from us, and you get your own number when I come out to look at the job.

I start by asking what you're building, a new house, an addition or a back unit, and whether there's a soils or grading plan, because that tells us which city review the plans go through and how the footings get built. From there our crew lays the footings out to the drawings, digs them to the depth the plans call for and cleans out the loose dirt so the concrete sits on firm ground. We set the forms and the rebar, the steel bars that hold the concrete together if the ground shifts, and we pour early in the day so the heat doesn't dry the top before it's finished. Then the concrete cures, which is the wait while it gains strength before anything gets built on it, and we haul off the forms and spoils and leave the lot clean. If a budget gets tight, the dig is the last place I'd cut, because once the concrete's in, nobody can see or fix what's under it.

Not every job needs a whole foundation. If you're only putting up a patio cover, a block wall or a porch post, we pour concrete footings on their own. Landlords and owners putting up a new building with parking can have us do the concrete parking lot building too, so the same crew that knows the site handles the paving.

In San Gabriel, what you're building sets the review path before a foundation can go in. A new house, or a second story on a one-story home, goes to Site Plan Review before the city's Design Review Commission, while a first-floor addition or a back unit gets staff review instead. The city has also amended its structural code because of how close the area sits to earthquake faults, so footing design here starts with the lot and the approved plans, not a stock drawing. We build to what the approved plans and the engineer call for, and we wait for them before we dig.

A lot of our foundation calls are back units going in behind older houses and additions on single-story homes, often on tight lots, and we see the same kind of work in Alhambra and Temple City. On a tight lot we set the debris bin in your driveway when we can, because a bin out in the street needs a city permit and one fully on your property doesn't, and it keeps the neighbors' parking clear.