# How do I raise a house to add an elevated porch?



## kgcaddesign (Feb 17, 2012)

First: I am new to Architectural Drafting, so my question may be very basic but I will appreciate any explanation.

I am trying to design a two story residential house, I live in an area where we do not need basements, just a 4" concrete slab for a foundation and 6" footing. This is what I have as a foundation for my design. I want to create a raised porch where you can step up two-three steps. But to do that I would need to raise the house right? So how can I do this? The houses around my area usually have 1' high CMU bricks or 1' high concrete blocks with wood joists on top, followed by wooden panels on top of the joists. I was thinking I can place wood joists on top of my 4" slab to elevate the house. Is this a correct way to raise the house? I am looking for an economical way to do this. Thank you for your time.

1. edit: guess i should ask around my area instead. u all r very rude. first of all, our ground is all hard clay so it’s common to see houses with plain old CMUs as footings that sit right on top of the ground (no penetration what so ever). We technically don’t even need a footing in some areas cuz the ground is so tough, and it’s rare to see a crawl space (and I’m not pulling this outa thin air, this is what I have been told in class in off-topic conversations with the instructors). Plus I never said I’m an architect, I said "architectural drafting"....all i know is how to use the programs to draft what an architect designs, I don’t know about architecture, and all I'm doing is trying to mess with the programs and I asked a simple question. If I knew yall'd blow your brain out telling me "there is more than one way, be more specific" I would never have asked. Sorry for asking such a "difficult" question for yall to answer... pft..."real" architects should realize not everyone in the country builds things the exact same way. No wonder u guys are losing your businesses left and right...

Thank you greg24k, your answer was the only helpful one. I don't know why the others even bother to waste their life just to make a rude, useless comment that did not benefit anybody but their puffed up ego.


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## dave_dj1 (Mar 16, 2010)

WTF are you talking about? Raise the house to have an elevated deck?
For crying out loud, if you are in fact and architect that should be pretty basic, not to mention common sense. Why would the house need to be raised if the deck is going to be? 
You people sure have different ways to do things that's fo sho!


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## greg24k (May 19, 2007)

kgcaddesign said:


> First: I am new to Architectural Drafting, so my question may be very basic but I will appreciate any explanation.
> 
> I am trying to design a two story residential house, I live in an area where we do not need basements, just a 4" concrete slab for a foundation and 6" footing. This is what I have as a foundation for my design. I want to create a raised porch where you can step up two-three steps. But to do that I would need to raise the house right? So how can I do this? The houses around my area usually have 1' high CMU bricks or 1' high concrete blocks with wood joists on top, followed by wooden panels on top of the joists. I was thinking I can place wood joists on top of my 4" slab to elevate the house. Is this a correct way to raise the house? I am looking for an economical way to do this. Thank you for your time.


I don't know were you from, but I don't think a 6" footing is suitable for a 2 story house. 
There is so many ways of doing what you want to do, and all of the ways, more or less will cost you the same...the question is how high do you want to go? If all the houses in the area 1' high, do what everyone else is doing... unless you want to go higher then that, then you go higher using same means as you would do going up 1', and you will end up with a crawl space.


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## Tinstaafl (Jan 6, 2008)

kgcaddesign said:


> I am trying to design a two story residential house, I live in an area where we do not need basements, just a 4" concrete slab for a foundation and 6" footing.


While a slab can be poured with integral footing, the slab itself is not considered a foundation. If you want the house higher, build it the same way most of the country does--with a poured footer and block walls for the crawl space. Even as a student, you should be familiar with that design.l


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## PrestigeR&D (Jan 6, 2010)

......

B,


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