Foundation Pad

[Gibbs]

Hello - I'm the new girl and have a question that I have searched for the answer to on your forums and the whole of the worlds sites but have had no luck so please be patient with me.

My husband and I (no I'm not the Queen) are set to remove a load bearing wall. We have SE's calcs and understand the general principles for this work. Our problem is that we need to dig foundation pads to sit the piers on to hold the rsj. The wall sits between the kitchen and dining room and ties into the lounge wall. When we took up the floor boards to investigate what was underneath we could see that the existing foundations are right in our way!!! (how inconsiderate) SE has stated that we dig 750x750 holes (depth to be confirmed by building control) but how do we get under the existing walls/foundations?? We're leaving up about one third of the wall and are tying one pier into this and are required to have this remaining wall central on our foundation pad - this applies to the second pier which will tie into the lounge wall.

I hope this makes sense and that someone out there can enlighten me as I would like to be able to suggest a way to Mr Gibbs without sounding like a complete X!?":!

P.S. He doesn't know I've asked for help - I think he's waiting for divine intervention!

I expect building control may help but I don't want to sound completely daft when they come round

Thanks in anticipation for any advice

 

[^woody^]

Any particular reason why the SE has specified additional piers? Is this over design, as its common for beams just to rest on the existing walls?

All you need to do is widen the foundation by digging to one/either side to form a pad to the required width.

You may have to insert some tie bars to tie the new to the old foundation.

Ask your SE - you've paid him he should have considered this

 

[Gibbs]

Thank you Woody for responding -

One of the existing walls already holds a steel which supports a first floor exterior wall so we have to place our new steel underneath this existing one. We need to build a pier as there isn't enough wall to sit rsj on (i think) so will be tying our first pier into this wall.

So we just keep exisitng foundations and use these as a central pad and just expand them? What if the existing foundations aren't as deep as building control require?

 

[^woody^]

What if the existing foundations aren't as deep as building control require?

Underpin them, or get your engineer to tell the BCO why there is no reason that the foundation should be deeper than the existing - BCO's tend to have to listen to engineers in these circumstances.

Sorry to muddy the waters, but why can't the new steel be joined (welded or bolted) to the existing one at the same level? Then no pier needed

Or why cant you jack the existing steel up, and place the new steel into the wall directly under the bearing of the existing steel, so that the existing steel sits on the new one and the new one sits on the existing wall. Again, no pier needed

Tying a pier to an existing wall, and then sitting a steel solely on that pier so that the load is mainly on this new pier, is not IMO, the best solution if other options are available

 

[Gibbs]

Am hopefully having building control round this week and will see what they say - but thanks for the advice as at least I have some alternatives and won't look like a numpty!