SUBS #14:
THE INVISIBLE FOUNDATION!

ISSUED: 07 OCTOBER 2003

Pick a fairly flat spot on the lawn,
preferably one that doesn't flood.
Put down a 6-mil layer of black plastic.
Dump a six inch layer of gravel on top.
Level it out. If helpful, lay a collar of 
cinder blocks to contain the gravel .

THAT *IS* your foundation
for a multi-story building!

Don't believe me?

Read on!

You just need to put the right building on it!

======================
Put your SUBS floor panel on 
the gravel . . . flat side down!
======================

That's the right building!

The floor surface to walk on will screw to the 
open top of the panel. The original flat
surface of the panel is the load bearing side.
Be sure to use a heavy duty panel, perhaps
a foot thick one if you have multiple stories.
[The panels of the floors above would be 
placed with the flat side up for walking on,
and a ceiling would be screwed on below.]

Now you have, not just a thin ring around
the perimeter with a few central pads for 
the building foundation, but the entire floor 
area of the ground floor as a load bearing 
surface, pressing down on the grass to 
hold the building up. Most foundations are
like the opening-edge of a shoebox. SUBS
puts the FLAT side of the shoebox down,
not the knife-like edge, for maximum support. 
Don't float a boat on the rails, put the hull down!
Don't use a cookie-cutter edge for load bearing 
foundations. That's completely bassackwards! 
Use the entire cookie to support itself! Put the
walls on the cookie, not the cookie on the walls.

Now the foundation pressure is vastly reduced!

The gravel gives you drainage if the odd flood 
does occur . . . and is really easy to level out!

And you *NEVER* have *ANY* room at all 
under your house for blocks, wedges, jacks, 
wires, pipes, leaks, cat turds, dog vomit, 
beer cans, dead possums, or live skunks! 

Winos simply can't crawl in there to sleep'n shit. 
They can't move in, as there is no in to move to! 
You never ever have to clean or even inspect it!

There is no crawl space, so you can't go there, 
or get stuck under the house in the dark with a 
dead flashlight, the wrong tools, and dirt in your 
eyes, breathing moldy cat turd dust while weird 
bugs without eyes sniff you hungrily, certain you 
could only crawl in there to die, and the biting
bugs are already helping you ungracefully die.

On the other hand, if the FBI accuses you of being
a serial killer with bodies buried under your house, 
you can remove floor panels one at at time to dig, 
from the inside, without disturbing the rest of the 
house. You could also excavate a root cellar, etc. 
later, and expand your house by building down.

For extraordinary earthquake and hurricane 
protection, drill soil-screw earthquake anchors 
every four feet under EVERY wall in the building,
[NOT just around the perimeter!] where they bolt 
neatly to the SUBS connector rings, and your 
ground floor is solidly bolted down to earth. 

Bolt on the rest of the building and you're done!

You can leave it up for 100 years . . .

when the gravel settles a little, tighten up
the nuts on the earthquake anchors . . .

. . . or take it down tomorrow, scoop the 
gravel off the plastic, load the blocks, roll up 
the plastic . . . and your grass is still green! 

Remove the earthquake screws, and the 
only sign of the building is a few divots!

And the building has not been damaged at all!

It can be easily and cheaply loaded with just a fork-lift 
onto a normal-width flat-bed truck and hauled away with 
NO expensive too tall wide-load warning-vehicle hassles!

If you like, it becomes a different building 
. . . or buildings! . . . when reassembled!

You can even use the old plastic, gravel,
block and anchors for the new foundations!

In a pinch, two men could load it without the fork lift.

In fact, ONE man can load the entire building on the
truck all by himself, though a helper and a fork lift 
make it vastly faster, safer, and more efficient. 

I built a very tiny SUBS building entirely by myself.
I moved it by bolting skiis under it and towing it
on mud with my van. I stopped when I hit a tree 
and broke it. That's all right . . . it needed pruning.

It's the exact same process for a HUGE building!
ONE panel at a time! Two man teams are good!

NOW do you believe me?


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Bill Dur <bill.dur@net-prophet.net>
http://net-prophet.net/subs/
Simple Universal Building System
"SUPERIOR BY DESIGN!"