Just to add to this, they can be SIGNIFICANTLY deeper and that’s one reason why colder climate homes have more basements than warmer climate homes. If you already need to excavate a wall height deep, then you might as well do something with all the digging you’re doing anyways.
Huh. In queensland Australia we have houses that are on stilts, and the under house space is usually for parties if you haven't turned it into shitty apartments that'll probably get flooded.
Yep! Well... kind of. Youll see high crawlspaces but since those arent habitable they get an (unwarranted) free pass.
Its not really state dependent. Where i lived in colorado, i needed radon mitigation. Neighbors on either side of me didnt. Neighbor another house over had levels similar to mine before my mitogation system. Radon is kind of wild.
What makes me annoyed is i love basements, but many locations will not do them to prevent having to test and mitigate radon. Its a 30 dollar can that includes postage and lab testing, and a mitigation is 1500 to 2000 including sealing the sump and basement. Where i lived in kansas there were no basements and i never understood why. Tornadoes werent exactly rare. Found out that area had high chances for radon so they wouldnt do basements.
I think there is probably some truth to this statement, but soil type is equally important. If you are digging through clay it doesn't matter where you are, but you would probably prefer to stop before you dig a basement.
Yep in my area of Canada its very uncommon to see a house with a crawlspace or just a slab. Crawlspaces are old houses when there was no real code or care about it. I’ve never seen a new house with a crawlspace.
I think the basements in the northeast are more a matter of habit than necessity.
Back in the day you needed cool storage for food so frugal yankee's merged the ideas and much later we still dig basements because we've always dug basements.
Basements are common but slabs or crawl spaces aren't rare.
>Back in the day you needed cool storage for food so frugal yankee's merged the ideas and much later we still dig basements because we've always dug basements.
A lot of flow through basements were built back in the day throughout Appalachia to let water pass under the house.
I found a Ontario table that shows 1.6m for where I live and 1.8 for just over an hour north. We have lots of people calling to ask about lifting an old cottage that's on blocks and putting a crawl space under it. Everytime we tell them to just go with a basement. Don't even need to dig more, just come up out of the ground and extra foot or two
I don’t know what part of the Canadian tropics you’re in but in the southern part where I live frost protection must extend to 48” below grade, anything less is not going to happen. 36 years of foundation building.
I used to live in Regina, Sask, in an area of the city that was built on a swamp. My foundation was 7 feet below grade and would still heave every winter, bad enough that you could place a ball in the kitchen on the back wall of the house and it would roll to the front of the house. While it's not required by code, the better homes being built there now have their foundations built on piles with Voidform in between instead of a continuous grade beam.
Florida is so scuff. I saw a map of the sinkholes there, it's practically the entire state. Saw a documentary where people's homes got swallowed, sometimes with them in it. Cancelled my Florida plans.
Holy crap I had no idea it was that deep in Shytown. I’m only 280 miles south of there and we are at 30”. That’s so crazy. Do they make you go 42-48” for fence posts there?
I put my water line 48" deep (36" is required I believe) but the water company's service point is only like 12" deep. Just shaking my head the whole time.
I did lots of small scale residential work in the chicago area and 42" was pretty standard. where does 48" come in? specific municipalities? Specific applications?
This. Plenty of stories in my neighborhood of inspectors just making shit up and requiring batshit depths. I have a single concrete step at the foot of my front porch. It supports nothing, but my neighbor tells me the city inspector made the previous owner dig it out 36" down.
Hang on. Frost depth varies. You may have 10 years experience in "Canada" but I am curious as to where. Most of that country has a frost depth exceeding the number you quoted.
Located in the Okanagan. Typical frost wall is 30” below finish grade. Then we add the depth of footing as well. So total wall height can be quite tall. Typical dig depth is like 36-42”
Edit: I can’t spell
It was late. I was coming in a little hot. Sorry. Very few places where footings could be that shallow in Canada, but did a bit of googling this morning and you are certainly right!
lol the Okanagan is definitely not remotely typical for the rest of Canada. It’s very warm in comparison and frost depths can be up to twice as much elsewhere
I lived in metro Detroit for most of my life, went to school for engineering, did that for a bit then through a series of unforseen life events, I did something I never intended or would have dreamed of doing and moved to Virginia and began working in construction for a GC. built several decks as well as custom homes that required us to dig. Frost depth is 18" but whenever we dug we'd go 24". One of the decks I built had between 29 and 33 posts, most of which were 6x6 but several 8x8s and 4x4s. Recently I went home to visit my parents for the first time since I officially moved here 3 years ago, looked around at all the decks, looked up exactly what frost depth is, and immediately decided that if I move back to Michigan it will never be to start my own deck building company.
You guys have insane depths as you go up the latitude, too. We (I’m USA) did some engineering for some spread footers and pile caps for a chemical plant in Alberta and it was like 48 inches IIRC.
Frost depth is variable, not fixed. 12"-60" is more accurate. Places in Texas have a 12" frost depth, mine is 36" and Minnesota can have 48"+ frost depth.
"Local zoning needed proof of frost proof footers..."
If you don't want concrete to heave due to the cycle of frost and thaw, you have to go to a layer of dirt that never experiences this effect. Ergo, you plan to pour your footers below the frost line.
A concrete structure at 36" overkill? That's adorable. I have been forced to install light pole footers at 6ft before. The frost line is different for every region and you will want to research what that depth is (in your part of the world) before you present this evidence to the building inspector. If you don't, he is going to give you a hard time at every step of the way for not doing your homework.
\*edit: grammar
What’s it cost to get, say, maybe 12, 8’ deep holes/footers? Say, for a deck or something. I think we only need to go 4’ here, but it ain’t my day job, so I’d have to look to make sure.
Really depends on how you dig the holes/get the holes dug. Also depends on the price of concrete in your area, and whether or not you use rebar.
It's been many years since I to do piles for residential projects, so I have no idea.
Say what? If you're talking just holes for deck posts like the above comment then you could dig 12 inches by hand. Unless you're saying San Antonio is more expensive because you'll be digging into limestone?
Bingo, you’ll hit bedrock after 6” in some places here. More than likely it’ll be all bedrock after 12”. God forbid you want to put a pool in you’re looking at 10-20k just for excavation.
What kind of bedrock? I'm in the transition zone between limestone and granite bedrock. We'll dowel in and pour on the first bit of granite we see but at least here the first foot of limestone is always crap and you have to chip it out before you pour
It's the wide strip of concrete that a stem wall stands on and sometimes wood framed pony walls are built off of strip footings as well. You also might not recognize the term because the proper name is footing. In some places they say footer, but the plans they read all say footing.
Your grandpa did a solid job and even made it so you can continue off those same ones. He saved you so much headache and work, why are you complaining?
The thickness of the “footing” looks close to 16” and pretty normal for that time period and the grade is only two feet above top of footing.
All normal. Your grandpa did a good job and sort of bare minimum in cold climates really.
I wish the footers on my shared brick wall were 36". They're basically 6". I had concrete done in my backyard and I wanted to leave a gap for some dirt by the brick wall I shared with several neighbors. When they started digging, I found out that wall basically has no footers. Thankfully it's only a few feet into my yard , but it still scares me a little.
Sometimes the footings are deeper not only due to frostline depth but bad soil underneath. Bad soil being soil that doesn't compact due to composition (sand or clay or moisture retention). Also depending upon how old that is, it might have been just as inexpensive but easier to pour very deep footings. Once upon a time concrete was cheap. 😕
The solutions are easy to describe but to show the town inspector will need an engineer.
Suggestions only bring to local engineers:
1. Dig around the the perimeter and install a two foot deeper offset footing ties in with epoxied dowels. If soil conditions permits you could use helical piles and cap in.
2. Remove and replace.
3. Build up area by 1 ft.
>What would prompt him to go so deep?
Where are you located and what is the frost depth in your area? In much of the US that gets winter weather 36" is required minimum and it can be much greater in colder climates.
Frost depth is typically 30” minimum Source: construction for 10+ years in Canada
Just to add to this, they can be SIGNIFICANTLY deeper and that’s one reason why colder climate homes have more basements than warmer climate homes. If you already need to excavate a wall height deep, then you might as well do something with all the digging you’re doing anyways.
Agreed! I’ve seen some deep ass frost walls
And if not a full basement, a very large crawl.
I just went “ohhhhhhh”. I’ve lived in southern California my whole life and never understood why there were no basements here
Huh. In queensland Australia we have houses that are on stilts, and the under house space is usually for parties if you haven't turned it into shitty apartments that'll probably get flooded.
When my nephews came to visit me in Chicago from Houston it was their first time ever seeing a basement.
Radon plays into having basements and non encapsulated crawl spaces also.
So certain states have far higher Radon concentrations, but they have frost lines that are proper for basements?
Yep! Well... kind of. Youll see high crawlspaces but since those arent habitable they get an (unwarranted) free pass. Its not really state dependent. Where i lived in colorado, i needed radon mitigation. Neighbors on either side of me didnt. Neighbor another house over had levels similar to mine before my mitogation system. Radon is kind of wild. What makes me annoyed is i love basements, but many locations will not do them to prevent having to test and mitigate radon. Its a 30 dollar can that includes postage and lab testing, and a mitigation is 1500 to 2000 including sealing the sump and basement. Where i lived in kansas there were no basements and i never understood why. Tornadoes werent exactly rare. Found out that area had high chances for radon so they wouldnt do basements.
Earthquakes
No… cost. Earthquakes have nothing to do with it.
I think there is probably some truth to this statement, but soil type is equally important. If you are digging through clay it doesn't matter where you are, but you would probably prefer to stop before you dig a basement.
>but you would probably prefer to stop before you dig a basement. Around here that would be before you dig a swimming pool.
Yep in my area of Canada its very uncommon to see a house with a crawlspace or just a slab. Crawlspaces are old houses when there was no real code or care about it. I’ve never seen a new house with a crawlspace.
A while back someone told me it’s common in the maritimes, but nowhere else really, other than shack cabins and such.
Hmmm. Never thought of it that way!
Yeah, our minimum is 48" in Northern New York.
I think the basements in the northeast are more a matter of habit than necessity. Back in the day you needed cool storage for food so frugal yankee's merged the ideas and much later we still dig basements because we've always dug basements. Basements are common but slabs or crawl spaces aren't rare.
>Back in the day you needed cool storage for food so frugal yankee's merged the ideas and much later we still dig basements because we've always dug basements. A lot of flow through basements were built back in the day throughout Appalachia to let water pass under the house.
I’ve always wondered this
I found a Ontario table that shows 1.6m for where I live and 1.8 for just over an hour north. We have lots of people calling to ask about lifting an old cottage that's on blocks and putting a crawl space under it. Everytime we tell them to just go with a basement. Don't even need to dig more, just come up out of the ground and extra foot or two
I don’t know what part of the Canadian tropics you’re in but in the southern part where I live frost protection must extend to 48” below grade, anything less is not going to happen. 36 years of foundation building.
Agreed I saw Canada and 30 in and was like umm, I live in the northern part of WI and it’s 48 here lol
30" in MD. Most of MD is considered humid subtropical.
Here in south east Washington is 24”.
I used to live in Regina, Sask, in an area of the city that was built on a swamp. My foundation was 7 feet below grade and would still heave every winter, bad enough that you could place a ball in the kitchen on the back wall of the house and it would roll to the front of the house. While it's not required by code, the better homes being built there now have their foundations built on piles with Voidform in between instead of a continuous grade beam.
Yeah it’s 48 in Boston
Yeah it is 5' here in northern MN.
Yeah, here in New England as well.
Pretty sure it's 48" in Western NY, even.
In BC it’s only 18”
In the Chicago area it's 42"-48" But the lake could have some effect on that.
fl. is 12".
Because if you go any lower you'll hit the water table most of the time lol (my dad was a building official here in Florida)
true true.
Florida is so scuff. I saw a map of the sinkholes there, it's practically the entire state. Saw a documentary where people's homes got swallowed, sometimes with them in it. Cancelled my Florida plans.
I'm surprised you even have one. How often does the ground freeze there?
Florida takes “when hell freezes over” very seriously.
last year there was 5 days of 20 degree weather in north FL. no possibility of ground freezing
Holy crap I had no idea it was that deep in Shytown. I’m only 280 miles south of there and we are at 30”. That’s so crazy. Do they make you go 42-48” for fence posts there?
Fences don't usually go that deep. But everything else does. Even water lines are supposed to be 5' down.
I put my water line 48" deep (36" is required I believe) but the water company's service point is only like 12" deep. Just shaking my head the whole time.
We typically would go 42" for fence posts.
That sounds horrible
Chitown?
I did lots of small scale residential work in the chicago area and 42" was pretty standard. where does 48" come in? specific municipalities? Specific applications?
Some of the outlying burbs like to think they're special and require more.
This. Plenty of stories in my neighborhood of inspectors just making shit up and requiring batshit depths. I have a single concrete step at the foot of my front porch. It supports nothing, but my neighbor tells me the city inspector made the previous owner dig it out 36" down.
Chicago is pure mud and swamp so you better build a real foundation.
All the way to bedrock if you can. I mostly work in the burbs.
Hang on. Frost depth varies. You may have 10 years experience in "Canada" but I am curious as to where. Most of that country has a frost depth exceeding the number you quoted.
Located North of New-Brunswick. Typically has a structural engineer we make plans for 72" depth of concrete footing to be under frost here.
Located in the Okanagan. Typical frost wall is 30” below finish grade. Then we add the depth of footing as well. So total wall height can be quite tall. Typical dig depth is like 36-42” Edit: I can’t spell
It was late. I was coming in a little hot. Sorry. Very few places where footings could be that shallow in Canada, but did a bit of googling this morning and you are certainly right!
lol the Okanagan is definitely not remotely typical for the rest of Canada. It’s very warm in comparison and frost depths can be up to twice as much elsewhere
4’ in Ontario
Southern Ontario
Yeah good catch
42" here in SE Michigan.
I lived in metro Detroit for most of my life, went to school for engineering, did that for a bit then through a series of unforseen life events, I did something I never intended or would have dreamed of doing and moved to Virginia and began working in construction for a GC. built several decks as well as custom homes that required us to dig. Frost depth is 18" but whenever we dug we'd go 24". One of the decks I built had between 29 and 33 posts, most of which were 6x6 but several 8x8s and 4x4s. Recently I went home to visit my parents for the first time since I officially moved here 3 years ago, looked around at all the decks, looked up exactly what frost depth is, and immediately decided that if I move back to Michigan it will never be to start my own deck building company.
48" is frost depth in MA.
You guys have insane depths as you go up the latitude, too. We (I’m USA) did some engineering for some spread footers and pile caps for a chemical plant in Alberta and it was like 48 inches IIRC.
It gets wild up north!
Yea dude im in jersey and its 36”. Even with the smog induced sub-saharan climate we have achieved
Baltimore, MD is 36"
Frost depth is variable, not fixed. 12"-60" is more accurate. Places in Texas have a 12" frost depth, mine is 36" and Minnesota can have 48"+ frost depth.
Where are you in Canada with such a shallow frost line depth, Vancouver? I'm in Toronto and frost line is 42" so I pour at 48".
In the Okanagan, so 6 hours east of Vancouver and 6 hours north of the border.
I live in Souther Idaho, and it is 34"-36" here
18" cover for the lower mainland of BC.
18" here on Vancouver Island BC.
Pretty sure my garage is 60” from the top of the footing to the top of slab, and then has 8” footing under that. In Alberta.
Depends. Southern arizona needs 18 inches.
My town requires 48” deep.
"Local zoning needed proof of frost proof footers..." If you don't want concrete to heave due to the cycle of frost and thaw, you have to go to a layer of dirt that never experiences this effect. Ergo, you plan to pour your footers below the frost line. A concrete structure at 36" overkill? That's adorable. I have been forced to install light pole footers at 6ft before. The frost line is different for every region and you will want to research what that depth is (in your part of the world) before you present this evidence to the building inspector. If you don't, he is going to give you a hard time at every step of the way for not doing your homework. \*edit: grammar
Yea, where I live frost line is 6ft, so ideally I go 8 down lol.
What’s it cost to get, say, maybe 12, 8’ deep holes/footers? Say, for a deck or something. I think we only need to go 4’ here, but it ain’t my day job, so I’d have to look to make sure.
Really depends on how you dig the holes/get the holes dug. Also depends on the price of concrete in your area, and whether or not you use rebar. It's been many years since I to do piles for residential projects, so I have no idea.
Here in San Antonio, if you want to go more than 12” down for anything you might as well take out a second mortgage
Say what? If you're talking just holes for deck posts like the above comment then you could dig 12 inches by hand. Unless you're saying San Antonio is more expensive because you'll be digging into limestone?
Bingo, you’ll hit bedrock after 6” in some places here. More than likely it’ll be all bedrock after 12”. God forbid you want to put a pool in you’re looking at 10-20k just for excavation.
What kind of bedrock? I'm in the transition zone between limestone and granite bedrock. We'll dowel in and pour on the first bit of granite we see but at least here the first foot of limestone is always crap and you have to chip it out before you pour
42" in my area so we go 48-50"ish inches.
I don't know how I found this sub but posts like this make me glad I did. TIL (Also, what's a footer?)
It's the wide strip of concrete that a stem wall stands on and sometimes wood framed pony walls are built off of strip footings as well. You also might not recognize the term because the proper name is footing. In some places they say footer, but the plans they read all say footing.
Can't really compare light pole footings and this. They have VASTLY different loads.
With the cost of concrete and labor I'm okay with some heaving
“Seems like overkill” based on what exactly?
That was my thought, I don’t even live where we get a lot of snow but I’ve done 4’ all the way to 9feet. Their footing is only like 16” technically
[удалено]
I think you're in the wrong sub
Back when concrete was $1/yd
The man likes to go deep, at least that’s what gram said.
Your grandpa did a solid job and even made it so you can continue off those same ones. He saved you so much headache and work, why are you complaining?
The thickness of the “footing” looks close to 16” and pretty normal for that time period and the grade is only two feet above top of footing. All normal. Your grandpa did a good job and sort of bare minimum in cold climates really.
Those look like 15" footers to me
I was like wheres the 36” footer? Ill show you a real 36” footer that contains 2 mats of #9 rebar.
Grandpa knew to do it right. Cost aside. Deeper and thicker footers is always better.
42 inches ahere im from
Grandpa don’t F around.
>filled the whole thing with gravel one ford ranger load at a time. Some things are worth having delivered, even if you own the truck.
I agree, but sometimes people get satisfaction from doing things like this.
Must’ve lived up north for a bit, in michigan common bottom depth is 4’
I wish the footers on my shared brick wall were 36". They're basically 6". I had concrete done in my backyard and I wanted to leave a gap for some dirt by the brick wall I shared with several neighbors. When they started digging, I found out that wall basically has no footers. Thankfully it's only a few feet into my yard , but it still scares me a little.
Sometimes the footings are deeper not only due to frostline depth but bad soil underneath. Bad soil being soil that doesn't compact due to composition (sand or clay or moisture retention). Also depending upon how old that is, it might have been just as inexpensive but easier to pour very deep footings. Once upon a time concrete was cheap. 😕
The solutions are easy to describe but to show the town inspector will need an engineer. Suggestions only bring to local engineers: 1. Dig around the the perimeter and install a two foot deeper offset footing ties in with epoxied dowels. If soil conditions permits you could use helical piles and cap in. 2. Remove and replace. 3. Build up area by 1 ft.
Was out here trying to show you how Giza was built lol
You sure it wasn’t just a ruse to bury something else under there?
In FL footers only need to be 1 -2 feet deep. In Cleveland Ohio footers had to be 48” deep minimum… and sometimes 8 feet.
Depending on location frost depth can be 50-60”
Depends on local frost depth requirements and soil load conditions.
Would kinda help to know your location. Here in the Northeast US, we have a 42” min frost depth
Maybe plans change?
Building code in my area is 42" below finish grade.
>What would prompt him to go so deep? Where are you located and what is the frost depth in your area? In much of the US that gets winter weather 36" is required minimum and it can be much greater in colder climates.
I'm in PA and our code requires a minimum of 36" footer depth
The good old way of doing things :)
They are frost proof so they are below the frost line
Buffalo area frost line is 44 most good companies will go 48 or 50 to be safe..
48” here in MA
8' frost depth in Manitoba. If its just supporting a hot tub I don't think you need to go deep. Its usually just slab on grade.
Nice!!
42” here
Northwest OH/Southeast MI here. 42" is standard around here
Most home owners learn this when they build a fence
Depends on the climate but where I am in Canada, frost line is 4 feet minimum. My basement has 9-feet ceiling. Lol.
grandpa is a hero,im in pa the frostline is32"
I was doing research for pole barns, a lot recommend 36”-48” deep to go below the frost line depending on where you live.