I am having a pier foundation on a vacation cottage replaced as most of the old piers are 75 years old, leaning, and heaving greatly in the cold winter months (Buffalo NY area). The contractor is going to be pouring 12′ x 16″ contrete piers 42″ below the soil line.
What special precautions should I be aware of? Is it necessary to put rebar in the piers?
Thanks!
PJ
Replies
I'd look into the local frost depth- the new code requires 42" deep footings in central NJ, so I'd have to say they'd be substantially deeper in Buffalo- yooz guyz get a lot colder than we do. 12"x16" also seems small- that's only 1.33 SF of bearing per pier- unless you've got soil with a very high bearing capacity (or very light loads on each pier), you might wanna rethink the size.
As far as rebar goes, it won't hurt. Have you had an engineer look at the situation, or is the contractor "designing" this stuff himself? Sounds like you're heading for a repeat performance of what you've got there already.
Bob
I grew up in Wyoming county. Buffalo doesn't have many piered vacation homes, so I assume you are rural with this
There are places back there that can beOK with 42" because of haevy snow cover, but there are other places where 6' is more the norm. Can't always count on heavy snow to insulate the ground. The old ones are heaving precisly because they were not deep enough.
Definitely use rebar
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