Foundation block wall installation in Salinas CA - a wall built to carry your house

Most people who call about this are adding a room or building a new house on a block foundation, and if what you have is an existing wall that's cracked or leaning, that's foundation repair, which is a different job. The price mostly moves with the wall's length and height, how much soft ground has to come out under the footing, how much grout and steel the wall takes and whether it gets dampproofing or full waterproofing. The schedule turns on permit inspections and on getting the floor or bracing in place before any soil goes back against the wall. My estimate writes down the work, the materials and the reason for each, so you can hold it up fairly against other bids.

On a block foundation the order of the work matters most, so we take it one step at a time. We dig the footing trench down to firm ground, form and pour the concrete footing in place, then lay the block with steel set in the cores where the plans call for it and fill those cores with grout. Before any soil goes back against the wall, it has to be braced or have the first floor framed on top, because a wall that takes the push of backfill too early can crack or even fail. The dirt pile waits until the wall is ready to take the load.

A new foundation usually means new ground to finish around it. Once the wall is backfilled and the house is up, we can take on the walkway construction out to the new door, and if the addition opens onto the yard, our outdoor kitchen masonry can tie a grill counter or bar into the same project.

In Salinas, building permits are reviewed, issued and inspected by Permit Services at the Salinas Permit Center, which you can reach at epermit@salinas.gov, at 831-758-7251 or in person at 65 West Alisal Street. When your job needs a permit, we handle the application and the inspections and keep you posted on where it stands, and if you'd like to ask about your own project directly, that's the office to call.

County of Monterey guidance says a soils report, what engineers call a geotechnical investigation, is generally required for all structures in high seismic regions like Monterey County. Under that guidance the report has to look at earthquake hazards such as liquefaction, where shaken wet ground behaves like a liquid, along with loss of soil strength, uneven settling and the ground breaking along a fault. Whether the city asks for one on your wall is the city's call, so we sort that out before the estimate is final. We're based in Salinas and work in the cities around it, and we build these walls on jobs in Prunedale and Marina too. If your city isn't on our list, call and ask.