Building Forms for Concrete Footings - Part 2: Rebar

We're midway through building the forms for the concrete footings, adding reinforcement bar phase, aka rebar.

The bottom of the footing forms must be clear of loose debris before installing rebar. Anything loose - rocks, mud, loose soil, ice - had to be dug out and cleaned to virgin soil. We want the concrete footings for the foundation resting directly on solid ground.

The bottom of each form looks clean.

A layer of plastic was placed on the inside of the footing forms to prevent the concrete from sticking to the wood. Steve will re-use some wood lengths for the future trellis on the future deck.

Steve ordered 250 20' lengths of half inch #4 rebar. From that, he needs to make the following pieces:

REBAR RECIPE

• Long Horizontal Lengths- 3 horizontal rebar that run the length of the footing, and sit in the spacers/chair.

• Short Perpendicular pieces - Short 21" rebar bits that get tied in every 18" perpendicularly to the horizontal ones. These are short so they get encased in concrete.

• Hooks - Hooks are L-shaped rebar (3' tall, 1' at the bottom) that get tied in every 18" as well. It looks like this: L L L L These help stabilize the foundation wall to the footings.

• Minimize Waste - Each rebar comes in 20' lengths. So Steve mathed out 5 hooks per length of rebar.

• Corner pieces - 5' rebar was bent in half to a right angle to reinforce corners.

• Additional Rebar - Steps that exceeded 12" in thickness got 2 additional horizontal rebars at the bottom step that sits on metal chairs. There were quite a few sections with 5 horizontal rebar going across.

Ready for the footing inspection.