All,
I am currently in the process of building a side & rear extension on my house, and having dug the footings am about to order in the concrete prior to the arrival of the sub-contractors...
To set the scene...
Down the side of the house, my extension will sit about 6 inches (to allow for drainage) from the neighbouring property. He has requested that I do not mass fill the entire trench (as originally planned), but shutter off around his footings and drop in three seperate blocks of concrete either side and inbetween his chimney breasts on which lintels wil sit that will span over the footings for his two chimney breasts. The cavity wall will then be built on these lintels. The end result is that there should be no weight at all sitting on his footings.
Questions:
i) Do you recommend that I reinforce these footings with rebar / mesh? They will be approx 2000mm L x 600mm W x 300mm H. At what intervals would you place the rebar / mesh?
ii) The man from the council obviously wants calcs for the weight that will bear on the lintels. Rather than go out and get a structural engineer, I was hoping that I could just over engineer it based on there being an average weight bearing per m2 of wall as I have the load span tables for the concrete lintels that I'll be buying? Is this possible, or should I just go and find a structural engineer now?!
I am currently in the process of building a side & rear extension on my house, and having dug the footings am about to order in the concrete prior to the arrival of the sub-contractors...
To set the scene...
Down the side of the house, my extension will sit about 6 inches (to allow for drainage) from the neighbouring property. He has requested that I do not mass fill the entire trench (as originally planned), but shutter off around his footings and drop in three seperate blocks of concrete either side and inbetween his chimney breasts on which lintels wil sit that will span over the footings for his two chimney breasts. The cavity wall will then be built on these lintels. The end result is that there should be no weight at all sitting on his footings.
Questions:
i) Do you recommend that I reinforce these footings with rebar / mesh? They will be approx 2000mm L x 600mm W x 300mm H. At what intervals would you place the rebar / mesh?
ii) The man from the council obviously wants calcs for the weight that will bear on the lintels. Rather than go out and get a structural engineer, I was hoping that I could just over engineer it based on there being an average weight bearing per m2 of wall as I have the load span tables for the concrete lintels that I'll be buying? Is this possible, or should I just go and find a structural engineer now?!