Wet footing

[John Banks]

Hey guys, we dug a new foundation and retaining wall last week. We've got the footing all formed up and all of the steel in. Now, we have had a couple of inches of rain since then. So we've got a couple of relief holes dug with pumps for the collecting water. For the footing inspection, the inspector essentially wants the material dry, very little to no water and the ground has to be firm. After the guys got the steel in the footing, there was about an inch of muck from them walking around in it. The footing for the foundation is 2' wide while the footing for the retaining wall is 6' wide. With all of the steel in, it makes for difficult mucking of the hole now. I need to get this dried up tomorrow and friday am, since our footing inspection is Friday afternoon and we will be pouring it right after. Once we get all of the water out, we'll scrape the bottom layer of muck off with trowels and small shovels and I've thought about some ideas to get this all dry, such as kitty litter - but this will need to be scooped out, I've also thought about using a flame thrower style torch, the kind that hooks up to a 20lb tank, and hit the areas. Will the torch put out enough heat to dry the ground, or at least firm it up a bit?

Thanks for any and all ideas...

[dayexco]

get a vacuum

[dayexco]

better yet, next job, figure in your bid to overexcavate 2"....then throw back in 2" of 3/4" to 1" rock...throw the pump in, inspector's got no beef

[John Banks]

I thought about the vacuum too, great idea, we may actually try it. As for stone, that's a mixed bag around here. We can put some stone in the hole if we need, but they tend to frown on it. They want firm virgin ground. We've put stone in before, at the suggestion of one inspector. In the next town over, we put stone in and I thought the inspector was going to explode he was screaming so much. I told him that other inspectors had suggested to us using stone to firm things up. His response was, " They must have been old-timers, and we're trying to get rid of them!" He passed the inspection, but said he never wanted to see stone in our footings ever again. Go figure, nothing like consistancy with inspectors.

I did ask the inspector for this referenced project about stone and he doesn't like the idea. He wants the soil to be firm, which for the most part it is, with the exception of the top inch or so, and he wants it dry.

[digger242j]

I don't know how well it would work in your particular situation, but have you considered Lime?

[SunServicesLLC]

Lime was gonna be my suggestion

[smalltime]

Have you considered using kerosene torpedo heaters? We have had luck drying the foundation walls to continue waterproofing by setting the heater in the opening & covering the top with R-max, plywood, or even plastic. Good luck.

[cat320]

That's what i was thinking after you clean up the muck is to get those big torpeado heaters and box it in some how .They will dry it fast.

[John Banks]

I'll check out the lime idea. The heaters are a great idea too, thanks. We have a couple of the heaters ready to go.

[deeredriver]

Lime is what we always uses. Contact your ready mix plant, as they should have some.

[dumptrucker]

Stone is the norm up here. All the engineer's usually require it under footings. The only time we have to have our footing's inspected is on commercial jobs, no ispection for residental. Even on commercial job's never had an inspector dislike stone. They get a XXXXXX if they use stone up here.