Good Morning, all.
It is our usual get together to chat about home projects/problems and perhaps even help a Kossak out who needs some good advice and a little encouragements. Doing our part to help elect Democrats by helping Democratic activists and other political types who may inhabit DailyKos keep their home in repair.
For me, eight days of jobsite work has resulted in a footing awaiting an inspection before placing the concrete. Picture and discussion over the fold...
That's the southwest corner of the kitchen, looking towards the corner where the front of the garage comes in on the left. These are massive footings, nominally 24 inches wide by 10 inches thick, but the finished compacted trenches, cleaned of the crumbly soil are wider in places. It turns out this is old fill, from decades back, the homeowner 40 years ago having filled in his gently sloping back yard in to level it out.
I elected to overbuild these footings because I'm a little leery of this soil. Although only two continuous rebars (reinforcing bar) are called for in the plans, I usually put in three, and I always cross the rebars at the corners, adding to the enormous strength these steel sinews add to the mass of concrete (about 20 cubic yards).
The short vertical rods standing out of the ground with orange paint on their tips are the leveling stakes, placed every three feet or so with a laser leveling device that gets each stake to within an eighth of an inch of exact level along the entire 200 plus foot length of the footing. Being this exact aids tremendously in building a foundation ("stem") wall upon this footing, which will be done with ICF blocks.
This massive footing of reinforced concrete will carry the load of the adobe walls and what bears on them, the roof structure, and the width of the footing spreads that load out over a wide area of the soil. Without this, the walls could possible settle into the soil, which would crack the plaster and even the wall itself. The house would likely survive such an event, but we do what we can to prevent it.
This is the Guest House, 1000 SF plus a generous 2 car garage. I'll be starting the Main House, 2500SF in a couple of weeks, after we get some power poles moved out of the way. I'll be doing this for a while, working on this place.
Meanwhile, back in Kosopolis, faucets are dripping, roofs are leaking and floods are trying to get into your basement. Bring on you thing, and our faithful cadre of Kossak builders might be able to help.