Part of an ongoing effort to improve the quality and acceptance of cast-in-place foundations, the Concrete Foundations Association (CFA) sponsored the
Part of an ongoing effort to improve the quality and acceptance of cast-in-place foundations, the Concrete Foundations Association (CFA) sponsored the 2006 Basement of the Year competition saluting some of this year’s most challenging residential projects. The foundation design of the 2006 winner was sufficiently complex to be named by crews The Dragon House and The Spaceship.
For this year’s competition, the largest in CFA history, contractors cast their votes in the association’s booth at the 2006 World of Concrete in Las Vegas. Awards will be formally presented at an awards banquet luncheon during CFA’s Annual Summer Meeting, July 19-22 in Wisconsin Dells, Wis.
According to CFA Executive Director Ed Sauter, the Basement of the Year competition enables foundation contractors to display today’s wide range of projects. Each year the projects submitted get more complicated, he explains, demonstrating the diversity afforded through poured wall foundations.
The winning structure is a 5,694-sq.-ft. basement in Eastown Township, Pa., with many garden walls and other features. Jerry Balmer, president of foundation contractor Balmer Brothers Concrete Work, Inc. of Akron, Pa., notes that while not their largest foundation of the past year, the project was probably the most complex they have ever completed. The job was especially challenging due to very few right-angled corners; many corners transitioning curved into straight walls; and, a multitude of corners, T-walls and Y-sections coming in at various angles. Additionally, a 9- to 3-ft. jump occurs in the middle of a curved wall.