Bigger Footings Needed

Wed, Jun 13, 2018

Bad news! I just learned that our footings need to be much much bigger than expected.

The footings in the original plans that the previous owner had done were spec’d to be 30” wide and 10” thick. That is a fairly common size for a typical house footing.

Due to the high snow load required, and because of the height of the back basement wall (its retaining a lot of earth), our footings need to be 6’ wide and 14” thick! And we have to use a #6 rebar, instead of a #4 (¾” rebar vs ½”).

We can revert back to typical sized footings on the front wall, where no earth is being retained.

The extra concrete cost does not seem to be too noticeable in the overall budget. I am concerned about the extra rebar costs though as a trade war with China looms on and the cost of steel is expected to rise.

The good news is that these footings do not have to sit directly on bedrock anymore, and we don’t have to pin them to bedrock. The original plans had pinning every 4’ with a depth of at least 8”. Not having to drill this many holes into solid rock is going to speed things up!

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