Missing Foundation Footing

[John Evans]

Interesting discovery in a crawl spaace of a 10 year old home. About 4 feet of missing footing for a poured concrete foundation wall.

[Joe Farsetta]

Precast foundations require no footing, as they are set on tamped stone. I realize that your photo was of a poured-in-place foundation, but my example is something to consider in your analysis.

In fact, footings came into being with the advent of brick foundation walls. Many old stone or rubble foundations had no footings whatsoever..

Are there any visible consequences in the home as a result of an area where no footing was seen?

Be careful when calling this out as a defect.

[John Evans]

Footings are required. How do you support the foundation and structure load without a footing below the frost line? Considering the missing concrete footing section was 4 to5' with the remaining walls properly supported with apparent standard footings, it appears the contractor missed this area.

[Jeffrey R. Jonas]

How do you know it's not missing by design???

[John Evans]

Common sense, guess you had to be there.

[Jeffrey R. Jonas]

Originally Posted by jevans

Common sense, guess you had to be there.

Yes, agree. Any comments based upon one picture on a MB is purely speculation.

[Bruce A. King]

Is that at an exterior wall or somewhere else inside the crawlspace?

[mnicholet]

If its not code then it should have been engineered. Obviously we dont do code but we should have access to it. Anyways, thats what I would recommend. Engineering...

[John Evans]

Rear exterior wall, in the crawl below a family room, total wall length about 24'. Remainder of the rear house wall is a full basement foundation. 2 story Colonial, bearing wall. Photos do not show the condition very well. There is a large void beneath the wall, my 12" probe screwdriver easily penetrated all the way through to the exterior of the foundation. The 2x left in place may provide a nice environment for WDI.