We have a house built in 1952, it has a concrete block foundation on a poured concrete footing.
One of its girder supports, which is 2 concrete blocks mortared together, sits half on the perimeter footing.
I was wondering if I could: leave it as is, pour a concrete pad to support it with rebar tying it to the old footing, or is there something better to do?
Replies
Support the existing beam well. You should have a structural engineer certify the size of the footing needed in your soils. My guess would be for my soils a minimum of 30 x30" x 12" 1/2 " bars both ways 12"oc. If your close to the perimeter footing I'd suggest drilling the new bars into the existing footing.
Mr Sawdust
The perimeter footing is what the rear half of the block is resting on.
If you click on the photo it should enlarge and you will be able to see it.
Could I just size the new footing based on the size of the perimeter footing?
If it has been this way for over 60 years, I would be inclined to leave it alone.
Depends where you live. if it is on a flood or earthquake area, review by an engineer would be a good idea. There may be other updates suggested at the same time.
Are you doing something different with the house, or just looking for a useful project?
We are not in any flood or earthquake area.
We were planing to encapsulate the crawl space that its in.
I noticed the problem while running an internet line through there.
The mortar joint between it and the foundation has a crack in it so I kind of want to at least pour a pad to support it so it doesn't "slide off" the footing.
Edit:
Now that I've thought about it a little more
I probably wont change anything, it's not going anywhere.
It is kinda of hard to tell from the picture: is the column separating from the footing? In other words, is the column rotating off the footing? If there isn't a gap (or the gap doesn't increase over time), I'd tend to agree with others to leave alone. If you're determined to add more support, you could pour a new pad either under existing, or if easier, like 6"-12" away and add girder support.
the gap is at the top of the column in a mortar joint between it and the foundation.
I probably wont do anything.
the gap probably formed as it settled not to long after it was built and its not going anywhere.
At that age, I would leave it as is. They probably needed a couple of 6 X 6 blocks and didn't have any.
Yeah I've decided to leave it alone.