Cabin Addition

[Raider Bill]

Without a footer are you not worried about the weight dropping everything?

[Magicman]

In this case, not at all.  No continuous footing, just footers every 4', which are dug down into the subsoil and poured to grade.  This is actually an improvement over "random pier" construction, which is also satisfactory in my area.

[SwampDonkey]

Frost can go 4 feet here, depending on snow cover and when the snow begins to pile up. I've seen some winters with frost maybe 4 inches and others 4 feet. ;D


My uncle's barn was 50 years old and build with 6" timbers and cement floor and 6-20 foot walls of cement. And the 20 foot walls where against earth bank. It was idle for 10 years and she all fell in with no heat. ;) You won't find no 150 year old barns up here, the frost and cold will shift it all out of plumb and down she goes.

[Coon]

Just be glad that you don't get frost like we do here.  On years that we have little to no snow the frost can get down to 8 feet.    We don't have frost like that here this year except where snow has been packed down from traffic.  I would guess that we have maybe three to four feet at the most otherwise.  This makes for expensive foundation work most times.  :( 

[isawlogs]

SD, many , many barns here are well over that age and still standing tall and square. Frost is one mean son of a gun, we have an inground ciment pool, that is 35 X 18 or 20 feet wide, 9 feet deep under the diving board. Two years ago frost got hold of it and even if the pool had six feet of water in the deep end and one foot at the shallow end, it was risen 7 1/4 inches at the deep end. yes the deep end was lifted 7 1/4 inches ...  >:(

[SwampDonkey]

A 50 year old barn can look pretty old. ;)

But no, most all the old hip barns are gone now and no one making any new ones, just sheds and pole barns now. Next door has a barn a little older, but that barn has a lot of rot and had insurance fix ups to keep it standing. The new owners have put a little work into it, but it's not in that great a shape. It needs a lot more work than they have done. Grandfather's barn is still standing, it might be a little over 50 now. Dad stored spuds in there for 30 years. But the new owners are letting it waste away. When I was a kid it was never used, dad had another barn he had cows in and got rid of the cows in '80 and tore the barn down, it wasn't real old either. Dad had torn down 3 barns on the farms and not much older than around 50 years old each. My barn was built in 54 I think it said on the old back doors I replaced. So it's 57 years old I guess. There just aren't any real old ones. The biggest reason why they were allowed to go in disrepair around here was the government set up milk quotas across the country and put the 20-30 cow herbs out of business. So they went to beef and a whole different style barn, mostly just a shed. The old barns went vacant. That's if they even wanted to farm cows any longer. The governments in their wisdom only gave us 2% of the milk market. As usual, everything benefits upper Canada.

[isawlogs]

SD , I think I can tell age of a building , specialy those that are on the family farm .. they are well over the 150 years  ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Yes I know you can in some instances. But traveling down the road looking at the landscape outside of your familiar surroundings might be different. ;) There isn't hardly a house around here 150 years old. I think the old country court house, now a museum, is 150 or so years old. There are lots 90-120 years old homes in some towns. Not many. Even the oldest Woolen mill is not old, only in location because it burnt in the 90's and was rebuilt. Houses and towns burnt often, usually a generation. ;) Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in the country and it has burnt several times. There is hardly a church around here that would be 150 years old. The one and only one that was ever here in this community is only about 110 years old.

[Magicman]

I mentioned "random pier" construction.  Here are a couple of examples: 



The first picture is under my old home that was finished in 1948.



This is under the Cabin that I built in 1995.



This shows the footers that are dug and filled with concrete about every 4' on my new addition.



Rebar and a bed of mortar laid on the ground.



The front 20' "chain" wall is almost complete after today's work.

[SwampDonkey]

Coming along nicely. ;D

Sure wish it were that easy up here.  8)

[Don K]

Looks like you like to lay block more than I do. ;) I did some for my house and hated every minute of it. Looks good so far.

Don

[Raider Bill]

Random pier I've seen. Actually lot's of the older house's  around here in Fl are like that.
I've never seen a "surface" footer like you are doing. But then again it is so sandy here that would probably sink.

[Magicman]

hated every minute of it  

When I think of laying foundation blocks, the word "despise" comes to my mind.  The only good thing about me doing it is that the labor is cheap.

Bill, when I remove about 6"-8" of topsoil, I hit a very stable hard clayish soil.  I may try to take a picture of it.

[Burlkraft]

The only good thing about me doing it is that the labor is cheap.

Got any injury pics yet?

[Magicman]

Not yet, just be patient.  Or maybe I'll be the patient.  

My hands feel like sandpaper, and the heating pad feels good to my back this morning.

The blade tensioner rebuild kit should come from WM today, so I can be back to sawing.  I need the rest.   ;D

[jim king]

I thought you would enjoy some shots of post and beam work here in the Amazon about 120 years ago.  The wood is all Mahogany.

[SwampDonkey]

The old farm houses and barns where post and beam around here. This old place has some 6x6"'s and 8x8"'s. I think the main carrying beam in the basement is 10x10". It was propped with 6x6 at mid span, but replaced by a steal post dad and I put in a few years ago. My barn has two carrying beams with two rows of 6x6" posts down the middle.

[ljmathias]

Don't envy you the block work, MM- did my own house and my son's house foundations- footings with several courses, up to 7 on our house, and a real PITA: mix mortor, tote blocks and mix, lay a few block and do it all over again.  Bit the bullet on my daughter's place under construction- I dug and poured the footings but hired a block mason to do the foundation walls- four guys laid 420 block in less than 6 hours; would have taken me three weeks.... and they only charged $2/block= best money I've ever spent (and I still have my back).

Lj

[Magicman]

A couple more days of block laying.  I now have completed the East and North walls.  The West will take a bit longer because of the porch and mud room.



East and North walls.



Beginning the West wall.

[SwampDonkey]

Looking good man, looks back breaking though.  ;) Hang in there. 

[Magicman]

I was able to get in a day and a half laying foundation blocks.  It looks like about 50 more blocks to go and I can start hauling lumber.


Slowly but surely.

[Piston]

Lookin Good MM.
Just gotta take it brick by brick  ;D

Lookin forward to seeing more progress.
8)

[Busy Beaver Lumber]

Magicman

I am impressed. You do some pretty fine masonry work for a sawmill owner.

Just be glad you don't live where there is a frost line to deal with or you would have 6 inch thick footings under those blocks and about 4 feet worth of them burried below the ground just to get a stable foundation that does not heeve in the winter. I have never seen a foundation put in like what you are doing where the blocks are basically set at ground level. Realy simplifes things and cuts down on the cost.

My 1900 square foot basement here in Indiana has 12 thick solid concrete walls sitting on top of a 8 inch thich, 18 inch wide footer and is 9 feet down. Took about 7 cement trucks just to pour the walls and that is not counting the basement floor or the garage floor and concrete driveway and walkway which took about another 6 trucks

The house has 4600 sq feet and another 950 sq ft in the garage. 7 bedroom 3.5 bath

[Magicman]

A basement here would be a real oddity.  There are some dug "root cellars" where potatoes, etc are kept, but they are nothing to do with the foundation.

To support a bricked home a 12"-18" footing would be dug and filled with reinforced concrete.  These would support the load bearing walls, both interior and exterior.  In my instance here, I'm not supporting a brick load, and have very stable clay soil.  A frost line does not exist.  If a water line is buried below the grass roots, it will not freeze. 

[clif]

You sure can not say stable clay and frost or freezing in the same sentence up here.  Clay is almost a cuss word! :D