Monolithic Footings?

Cache

I've got about 80 linear feet of interior footings in my basement. Foundation sub is recommending doing a monolythic pour for the basement slab/footings. What do you guys think? It'll save me about $300 to do a monolithic pour vs form/pour the interior footings then doing a separate slab pour.

NICKPAUS

If the cement is included go monolithic it will also save time. I built to identical houses and poured one monolithic and poured one with walls seperate from slabs. The monolithic saved form setup time but we used 90 yards on monolithic and 50 yards on non monolithic. It ended up being cheaper to pour twice.

Cache

Why did the monolithic require that much more concrete? It seems to me that there would only be a bit more concrete!?!

Justbuilding

Go monolithic for your interior footings, and use either wedge anchors or epoxy anchors for your walls after the slab is poured. Your finisher will give your a better slab at the wall line and you know the anchors are in the wall, not bumped out of position.
Can't imagine why it took that much extra concrete, unless the slab was a thickened edge, that was dug wrong or deep. Interior footings shouldn't take that much extra, exterior perhaps.

dlcj

Ive never understood why its not done monolithic. I see it all the time. A house nearly finnished and the basement floor being poured through the window or no pourch floor with a cat walk across the hole for 4 mounths. We allways pour our pourches (that are to be concrete) and garages early as possible. Usually while the house floor is being framed or soon after and sometimes before. It just makes for a cleaner and safer place to work. Less mud to stomp through and no cat walks to scurry across.

Cache

Yeah, I just finished talking to the foundation guys and the ready mix guys. I'm gonna go with a monolithic pour. It is actually saving me about $600 bucks in the end. $300 less for not having to form up the interior footings, and about $300 less concrete.

Why less concrete? When we were laying out a plan for a monolithic pour, they talked to me about dropping the slab inside the perimeter footings instead of capping the footings. I had my excavator spend an extra hour and dig the perimeter footings 8-10" deeper than the rest of the basement slab as opposed to digging out the entire hole to the same grade and filling with aggregate. Now I'll just scrape off an extra couple inches of virgin soil and it saves me 4" worth of concrete in a 8" band around the perimeter, as well as 4" worth of concrete 20" wide above 80 linear feet of interior footings. That works out to be about 3 yards less concrete.

This is going to set me back about 1 week on my schedule as the plumber has to finish before I can get the footings in for the bearing walls in the basement, but I'll just use the time to get the waterproofing on the walls, and the porch formed and ready to pour.

sawyerEd

i used to pour floors in a seaside area. Every slab we did was poured on sand that sucked the moisture out of the concrete too fast. now this could be controlled with a layer of poly. I was told that concrete will cure more slowly and be more workable if it is out of the sun and rain, so we poured basement floors in nearly finished houses.