The whole house rests on the foundation or it will sink. What does the foundation rest on? Why doesn’t the foundation sink just as easily?

Question

I get that some foundations do have sinking issues, but how does having a foundation help? If the foundation is poured and solidifies, what stops the weight of the house from immediately sinking/tilting the foundation?

In: 2809

Answer 1

The foundation spreads the weight of the house over a wider area and transfers the load the the ground.

Depending on what the ground is made of (bedrock, shale, clay, sand, etc.) the design of the foundation is different.

For large buildings, geotechnical engineers do tests. They tell the structural engineers how good the ground is at supporting weight, and the engineers design the foundation to work with those ground conditions.