Replies

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   Guest_ | Jan 06, 2000 07:47am | #1

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   We here at Breaktime need a little more information Ken. Location, Type of soil, depth of footing etc. before you'll get a real answer.

   By the way, loved your work on the civil war and baseball specials. First rate.

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   Guest_ | Jan 06, 2000 09:21pm | #3

   *Ken:Since you posed a fairly general question, I'll give you a fairly general answer:For many people here this goes without saying, but a concept that I have found that many novices don't understand is that the wider the footing, the more weight it can support. The depth is not so important as long as it is below the frost line and into something firm. Can you dig deeper to find something firm? The thickness of the footing is not so important, however if the footing is very wide, you may want to increase the thickness to, say, 8" - 12". Further, if the footing is very wide, you may want to add steel. Several times I have looked a footings dug by DIY types and when I asked them about what their thought process was, the response went something like this: "Well, since the deck is going to support a hot tub, I wanted to make the footings really strong. So, I made them really thick and deep." What I saw was a 8" diameter hole, 2' deep (only need to be 1' deep here in central NC) that tapered down to about 5" at the bottom. Some 18" pieces of rebar were placed in the footing in a vertical position. Wrong!! A more appropriate footing would be 18" x 18" x 12" deep, 10" thick concrete with rebar placed in a horozontal orientation.These are some general concepts. For more specific info you need to answer Calvin's questions, however the classic answer is that any footings with special requirements (ie: bad soil, or heavy weight) need to be designed by a PE.

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   ken_burns | Jan 06, 2000 09:21pm | #2

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   I need ideas on pouring concrete footings (for a porch ) in wet soil. What is the proper procedure.