Concrete footing under load bearing wall - Help Needed!

6593 Views 9 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Gary in WA, Mar 6, 2016

mrsavard

Discussion Starter · Mar 1, 2016

Hello All,

I am in the process of removing a load bearing wall in my house. I pulled the dry wall off the wall to do some preparation to have the wall removed and I noticed that there is a 2" concrete footing under the wall.

I have small amounts of experience with renovations but I have never seen nor heard of such a thing before.

Does anyone know why this was done? And more importantly, what would be the best method of removing this? I plan on staining/epoxying the floors so I need to have the finished product be flush and even with the rest of the floor.

Any tips or advice would be more than appreciated.

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Mingledtrash

· #2 · Mar 1, 2016

this 2" tall concrete is call a "stem wall" its very common. was this room previously a garage or a exterior wall?
you would need to cut it off with a concrete saw it will not look good for staining after.

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mrsavard

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 1, 2016

No thats the thing, this wall is in the middle of the house. It has never been an exterior wall.

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Bondo

· #4 · Mar 1, 2016

Ayuh,..... Is this shim true, 'n level or tapered,..??

My guess it's just to level the sill plate,.....

Pull down the wall, 'n hammer the lip outa there,....

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j0nathan

· #5 · Mar 2, 2016

Can someone elaborate on what a stem wall is. I'm curious....

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Mingledtrash

· #6 · Mar 2, 2016

j0nathan said:
Can someone elaborate on what a stem wall is. I'm curious....

Typically your footings need to be below the frost line to prevent frost heave so the stem wall raises up out of the soil to give you a starting place to place wood.

another reason would be if you have soils near the surface that are unsuitable to build on you can dig down to more compacted or suitable soils to place your footings.

below is a detail without stem walls you will see this more commonly in warmer climates.

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Mingledtrash

· #7 · Mar 2, 2016

mrsavard said:
No thats the thing, this wall is in the middle of the house. It has never been an exterior wall.

Any way you look at this situation it kinda sucks. either you will have to go with a different floor covering or i just thought of another idea...

Since you will need to cut the stem wall off anyway, you could cut like a 1' or 2' wide channel across the entire room in line with the wall. break out the concrete including the stem wall. then re-pour this strip. then when you stain you could do it a different color/design.

something like this stained concrete design could cover it up.

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mrsavard

Discussion Starter · #8 · Mar 2, 2016

Mingledtrash said:
Any way you look at this situation it kinda sucks. either you will have to go with a different floor covering or i just thought of another idea...

Since you will need to cut the stem wall off anyway, you could cut like a 1' or 2' wide channel across the entire room in line with the wall. break out the concrete including the stem wall. then re-pour this strip. then when you stain you could do it a different color/design.

something like this stained concrete design could cover it up.

This is a great idea, I will definitely try this

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stadry

· #9 · Mar 3, 2016 (Edited)

since you're removing the wall & footing, use a chipping gun then relevel w/cts (avail in apron store-maybe vest, too),,, its white & your floor's grey so you'll need some wtr-bas'd pigments from sher-wms when patching

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Gary in WA

· #10 · Mar 6, 2016

May need other tools also, to dig the new footings for the new beam required to carry the load above, per SE paper to satisfy your HO Insurance carrier with the signed local AHJ permit, if understanding it correctly... welcome to the forums!

Gary

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