# Widening a footing



## tedro (Jul 30, 2016)

We just started construction on our new house and unfortunately the foundation contractor has already made a mistake. They misplaced a footing by 8". I had checked the string lines and they were all correct. Apparently they offset the form to the wrong side of the string, so they are off exactly the width of the wall. This footing is 16" x 8" and supports two stories. The wall itself separates the basement from a safe room under the porch, so it is not a retaining wall - load bearing only.

The contractor is proposing to widen the footing by 8". He will do this by epoxying #4 rebar dowels into the existing footing every 12" and pouring the additional 8" along side it. He will also supply a letter from an engineer approving this method. The wall will then sit right on the cold joint in this expanded footing. The footings rest on clay with an assumed 1500 psf bearing capacity (typical for this area).

While I'm pretty upset that they made such a mistake, this does seem like a reasonable approach to fix it. Should I have any worries about this solution? How will this compare strength wise to be being centered on a 16" wide footing? In some ways I wonder if it's not actually stronger since the wall will rest on a 24" wide footing even though it's off centered, but on the other hand, I worry about that cold joint held together by rebar and epoxy.


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## Daniel Holzman (Mar 10, 2009)

You may want to discuss this matter with the contractor's engineer. If the contractor's engineer is planning to write a letter approving the redesign, effectively the contractor's engineer has now assumed responsibility for the adequacy of the design, effectively taking over responsibility from the designer of record. It is important that you make sure that the new designer is registered in your state, and provides a written statement accepting full responsibility for the design and any issues it may create going forward, since your designer is certainly not going to take responsibility for any trouble caused by the new design.


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## Canarywood1 (May 5, 2012)

Plus 1 to what Daniel said, make him do a tear out and pour it according to plans.


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## tedro (Jul 30, 2016)

Thank you for the replies. I am already going through the process with the contractors engineer that Daniel recommended.

My concern with getting an engineer to sign off on it is the simple fact that if there is a failure in 10+ years, I may have no recourse. There is no guarantee the engineer or contractor would still be around, and after that amount of time it would be difficult if not impossible to prove a failure was the result of this mistake.

My original suggestion was to rip and replace. The contractor replied that doing so would be less reliable than widening the footing. The perimeter of the foundation is a rectangle, and this is an interior wall. He said putting in a new footing would create two cold joints, each held with just two dowels instead of the continuous rebar that is in it now.

|----------------|
|xxxxxxxxxxxx|
|xxbasementxx|
|xxxxxxxxxxxx|
|---------|xxxxx|
|xporchx|xxxxx|
|----------------|

footing in question is the one above the word porch. Again, we are not backfilling this area, it was serve as a safe room. The - and | are footings. x's are there for formatting if that makes sense.


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## Daniel Holzman (Mar 10, 2009)

The reality of new construction is that even if the building is done exactly according to plan, there is no guarantee that if a failure occurs in five or ten years you will be able to recover from the contractor or his designer. Both may be out of business, or it may be impossible to establish the cause of the failure. So in this case, the contractor may be correct in stating that widening the footing is a better alternative than tearing out the improperly placed footing and replacing it with a correctly placed footing.

The important issue in my mind would be that you get at least the same assurance of responsibility with the changed design that you would have had if the contractor had built according to plan. So that means a stamped plan from the contractor's engineer showing the new condition, along with a note establishing that the revised design is the responsibility of the contractor's engineer. And of course the costs should be on the contractor, since he presumably admits he made a mistake.

If it were me, and I got a stamped design and a letter assuming responsibility, I would probably be OK with widening the wall, but of course it is your house, and you have every right to demand that the contractor build to plan.


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## de-nagorg (Feb 23, 2014)

A point to ponder.

With this error, and proposed remedy, you are getting a thicker stronger wall on your "SAFE" room.

Do get in writing all the documents that state the approved change.


ED


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## Canarywood1 (May 5, 2012)

I would not like my wall sitting directly on that joint, i stand by my original answer, but it's your call.


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## Msradell (Sep 1, 2011)

de-nagorg said:


> A point to ponder.
> 
> With this error, and proposed remedy, you are getting a thicker stronger wall on your "SAFE" room.
> 
> ...


 He's actually not going to get a thicker stronger wall, always going to get is a wall that is sitting at the joint of a two-piece footing. The footing will be wider but the wall won't be.

I'd be a lot less concerned about the 2 cold joints that would be created by replace the entire footing that I would be about the wall being offset on the footings.


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## tedro (Jul 30, 2016)

Msradell is correct. The wall has not been poured. It's thickness will stay at the designed 8" width. The footing will be wider, but will have a joint down the middle of the entire length.

To those that don't like the contractors proposed solution, can you help me understand your concerns? Other than it certainly not being typical, what is potentially wrong with this from a structural standpoint? 

The contractor admits his mistake and runs an honest company. He was actually glad I found the mistake before they started placing wall forms. If the footing truly is just as strong, I don't want to him to have to incur unnecessary expense and don't want to screw up my schedule any more than this already has. Of course, at the end of the day a solid foundation is more important than either of those things.


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## carpdad (Oct 11, 2010)

I would get my own engineer and the contractor must pay. I would also talk to the house insurance company and see if they have anything to say about it. They may want a record of this.


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## Msradell (Sep 1, 2011)

There are couple of things that would concern me about the proposed solution. The 1st is that with the wall off center on the new footing if it tries to settle it may tilt because the load is not centered on the footing. The heavier side may think faster than the other side. Secondly, rebar is not intended to carry the load like it will be between the 2 slab sections, and the old saying goes the leasing rebar does in concrete is to keep the pieces close together!
　
With an engineering signoff I would probably let it go but I'd make sure that the engineer who signed off took responsibility and can be trusted and not some friend of the builders.


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

I will always defer to DH on topics like this.

But....my take on it....

It's obvious the wall is going to be on the new section.

If the expanded footing is dug down level with the existing footing....and the dowel rods are installed as noted....the reality is, you are ending up with a wall that is plenty strong. 

The weight a wall can support is a function of the surface area contacting the soil. In most cases, a stem wall is going to be between 12-16" wide at the bottom. Expanding the wall 8" without the tie in with dowels means you only have an 8" footing. Not good. But, using the dowel rods helps to transfer the shear load to the exiting wall.

So....there is where the engineering comes in. How many dowel rods and the spacing. That will determine how much shear force is transferred to the existing wall. If the engineer signs off...good to go.

Or..... the contractor could make the actual footing a lot wider..and only the exposed part 8". Basically, ignoring the existence of the original wall.

Or.....widen the footing 'and' tie into the existing footing. The b!itch is not going anywhere.

But, don't do anything without a signoff.


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## ddsrph (Nov 23, 2013)

Would it be possible to pour wider and taller covering the existing, misplaced footing?


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## tedro (Jul 30, 2016)

Update:

The engineer was part of a medium sized firm with offices in three states. They are pouring the footing extension tomorrow monolithicaly with the wall. They put two #4's lengthwise in the extension. 

I suspect the same laborer that offset the footing to the wrong side of the string line had to put in the dowels. I inspected the work after the dowels were installed. I assumed it would be pretty easy to lay a tape measure over the footing and put the dowels 12" o.c. as specified, but there were a total of 42 dowels in the 32' long footing, none more than 10" apart. 

I would have preferred this didn't happen but I am satisfied with the solution.


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