Poly Under Footings?

RKrough

Digging a basement foundation tomorrow, This is Upstate NY and the water table is still high with possibly a day or two of rain early next week. In the past I have covered the bottom with 6 mil poly to make it easier and less muddy to sweep and pump the water out until we started forming footings and then pulled the poly out. I was wondering if there is any reason I could not just leave the poly down and pour footings over it? It would be a helluva lot less mud and mess. My laborers would look prettier at the end of the day.

Rich

Tom M

Leaving the poly would actually be considered a good thing. It would break the capillary effect of water wicking into the footing.

Chris Johnson

We use Tyvek instead of poly and leave it in, buy the 3' rolls, hammertacker to the top of the form boards. When done, the form boards can be used for framing the house...they're clean still.

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Chris

tgeb

I am not so sure about leaving it, won't the water that comes from the high water table seeping in ruin the sub grade?

We would have to remove any mud or water that is in the footing trenches. I don't see how you can do that if it is covered.

You can't pour footers on mud......can you? Maybe I am misunderstanding something.....

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Tom

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