When a foundation is poured, its footing—a wide flat base made from concrete and reinforced steel, designed to support the walls—is poured first, and then the walls are poured on top after ...

Poured and block foundations both sit on concrete footings, or poured pads that serve as a base for the walls. Footings are constructed in trenches dug beneath the level of the basement floor.

Other posts are temporary. Slightly inside the old footings they sink new, deeper footings for the new basement walls and tie them into the original footings with rebar, or reinforcing bars.

There is no need to remove the bearing wall footing unless it somehow is too high. It’s a common practice for the basement slab to be poured so it rests directly on top of the footings.

However, a typical basement begs for even more trouble because its components are poured in sections -- the footings first, then the walls and finally the floor.

ACI 117 then provides section 3.5—Deviation from cross-sectional dimension of foundation, in which the effective width of the footing or foundation is given a tolerance. Those are: Formed ...

If there is a basement, it may be surrounded by a ledge of dirt that helps hold the walls in place. If people still lived in the houses as their ancestors did, such construction wouldn’t matter.

Get Expert Advice Posts and footings support the weight of your house, so you have to size them right. Load-bearing posts must have a solid footing on undisturbed soil, and all parts of the post ...