Does anyone know what the guidelines or IRC codes are for the amount of time that concrete foundation forms must be kept on?
Foundation walls are 8’ 10" and the foundation wall is 10" thick. They poured yesterday morning and the forms were taken off this afternoon.
Doing a phased inspection for a contractor (go figure! 
). They want me to check the site out, prepare an ongoing report and do a final, pre listing inspection.
Here are some details and pictures. Please comment as you see fit.
NACHI helps.
Little Indian (eastern, not American) woman whose husband has WAY too much money and was a builder (money guy only) and built some pretty decent tear-down McMansions. The husband has gotten out of the business, but the wife likes it. (Around here, the Indo-Pak community is very big.)
She “built” her first house (She is the GC) and had me look at it (spec house) and she ran into many problems (she hired the cheapest subs. Go figure.)
Now, she wants me to “inspect” (read, check out and report how well the subs are doing and correct (or fire) them depending or their work.
You have to understand that the codies in this area (northern Chicago sububs) are usually good, professiona guys, but they have very little time on site (an average 4,200 SF SFH has only about 45 minutes, total, of local code inspector time on site during the whole process).
Footings were poured (with 2 x 6 forms and the concrete only went down about 7 to 8 inches). I never got a chance to check the rebar in the footing (duely disclaimed). The keyway was formed with steel angle irons, dragged through the wet cement (only 1 1/4" deep and in a V form. Picture 1.)
Then they put up the forms (about 3 days after the footings were poured). Please note the rebar (only at the bottom of the forms) which were tied with old, rusted wire. (Picture 2).
Drain tiles were just flexable black perf, not shedule 40 PVC. Seems like they want to claim both interior and external drain tiles, but the just run them through the footings, depending on the perimeter (many in and outs). (Picture 3, outside corner in an indentation.)
The concrete was poured yesterday morning, but was still wet and “could easily syill write my name in the top” on yesterday, early evening (pciture 4).
There was a garage (less deep footings and foundation) at the front east, and a basement walkout on the east side. The footings for these areas had no protruging rebar (for marriage into the adjacent foundation wall). There erre also big gaps, and embedded wood (from forms) at the basement walkout interfaces with the higher footings and foundation walls.
Please answer the “how long before you can remove the forms” question first, then, any comments?
