Rebar in footers?

tibberous · 03-12-2013, 09:56 PM

Do you need rebar for footers that are below the frost line, for a garage?

Also, can you footers be too thick? Mine are pretty poorly dug (literally the first day in my life I used an excavator), so I was planning on just sticking an extra few yards of concrete in there to make sure the high-spots were still 16+ inches thick.

joecaption · 03-12-2013, 10:12 PM

16" thick

I've never seen any footing over 8" thick.
#1 you need to go back and add you location to your profile!!
How did you set the grade stakes?
No idea on if rebar is needed, twice as much concrete that's needed, sure you really want to be DIYing this?
If this is messed up the rest of the building will follow.

mj12 · 03-12-2013, 10:21 PM

Id ask the fellows you ordering cement from.

**oh'mike** · 03-12-2013, 10:26 PM

I'm going to move this to concrete for you----

**oh'mike** · 03-12-2013, 10:31 PM

That is a rather thick footing---I don't know what your soil is like or your codes--so that might be the normal size for your locale----

Rebar is frequently place low in the footing in areas with soft or sandy soil---I put rebar into my houses footings --they weren't required ,but the added cost seemed like good insurance--

I am not a mason--I am allergic to shovels---so if a concrete guy chimes in---ignore my post.

mj12 · 03-12-2013, 10:40 PM

Is this a one story garage? There are houses as far as the eye can see out here in Detroit with no footers at all.

joecaption · 03-12-2013, 10:42 PM

No footer

Not so sure about that one.

mj12 · 03-12-2013, 10:45 PM

Yes, very sure, it is very common. At least with houses over 80 years old. I live in a vast wasteland of houses, they are falling down right on my street.

joecaption · 03-12-2013, 11:02 PM

Let think about this, there 80 years old and there falling down.
HMM
How does that have anything to to do with the O/P's question?
Still have no location.
No size of the building.
Single story or two.
So everyone's still having to just guess.

mj12 · 03-13-2013, 08:25 AM

The foundations are strong, the houses are falling down because of the roofing fail. Down south by you many many houses are just built on rocks. My point is you could get by without a footer. Although not ideal it was done successfully in this country for 100 years or more

Mort · 03-13-2013, 10:58 AM

Most of the footings I see have rebar in them. Not much, maybe one or two lines of it, and mostly to tie in the steel for the stem walls. So yeah, put some in, but there's no need to over do it.

tibberous · 03-13-2013, 11:37 AM

New Jersey.

Problem is that my footer bed is REALLY unlevel - I can either pay $3600 to have someone else do them, spend a day with a shovel fixing them, or pay an extra grand in concrete and just make them super-deep... well, actually super-deep in some places and normally-deep in others.

md2lgyk · 03-13-2013, 11:42 AM

Your plans should specify how much rebar to use. The guy I hired to build the foundation for my log home was amazed at how much was called for. I've never seen footers without at least some rebar. Footers are too important to leave to chance.

tibberous · 03-13-2013, 11:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by md2lgyk

Your plans should specify how much rebar to use

I don't have any plans. This project started as a patio - then I was like, "wow, this skidloader moves a lot of dirt, bet I could move this hill and build a garage"

concretemasonry · 03-13-2013, 01:27 PM

It is a strip footing there is often no requirement for rebar, but 2 or 3 longitudinal one are good practice. - A code is just the minimum standard, but you are allowed to do better.

The length wise rebar make the footing and stem wall work together into a very stiff reinforced deep beam that can span over areas with poor soil and not have settlement cracking, since very rarely are soil borings done for small jobs. A common rule of thumb is the the width of footing should be the width of the foundation wall plus 2 times the MINIMUM required footing thickness. This allows you to avoid cross-rebars if you overdig the footing depth.

If you building a garage, may be better to build the stem wall (block or concrete) from the footing upward about 8" above the planned slab elevation. This allows you to have a floating slab that can be poured later and will get you siding above grade and easy to wash out and provide drainage to wherever you want (front door or central rock well) if you track in salt and debris.

Dick