No heat in northern home all winter.

az99 wrote:

soren wrote:


I was a home builder in a wet, wooded region where crawl spaces are common, and winter temps. might go to zero on rare occasion, but typically lows in the teens are more common. I have seen unheated vacation homes with cracked and bulging foundations, and even frost that worked it way deep under the structure and heaved column pads upward a few inches. Now, you are spot on with regard to damages likely in extreme cold, but don't forget frost needs three things, low temps, moisture and conditions that retain moisture. I can assure you that in our wet clay soils we have three of three. When my new homeowners tell me, "We are planning on shutting the heat off in the winters" I'm pretty blunt.
I tell them to expect drywall damage, to be aware that structural damage due to frost heaving is a possibility, and that I don't warranty poor decisions.

How were you allowed to or why did you build a structure where the footings for the foundation were not below frost line?

Massive presumption on your part. All my work far exceeds code requirements, foundations are done well beyond minimum requirements, and I failed exactly zero inspections, which is pretty unusual after a few hundred of them. As for my observations, It's important to note that there are plenty of events that can happen to an unattended building, and as I have seen several times in the past, clogged, missing or damaged gutters, and several weeks of wet freeze and thaw cycles in a mixed climate like ours can really do some damage to a foundation.