Are Footings the Law?

Who knows?  They might be in one municipality and not in another. Specific areas in New England are now mandating that footings be used on anything below the frost line. Inspectors in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts are taking extra steps to insure foundation columns go with footings. More and more states and municipalities are adopting policies to enforce utilization of footings so that, when projects expand or carry unforeseen increased loads, they won't collapse, as a deck system did in Chicago in which many were killed or injured. It's important to note that footings are not only for frost inhibited areas; they are typically installed in areas with poor soil conditions with low poor soil bearing pressure. How can you keep track of which laws are in force where your next project is to be built? What happens when they change, half way though? Putting footings in as part of your foundation system makes good sense and dollars as well, ensuring your reputation as a quality builder for very little money, regardless of what the laws do or do not require. Today, as more homeowners are being made aware of bad building practices, the day of foregoing a proper footing has ended. State and local building codes continue to be scrutinized due to changes in lifestyles, weather systems, building materials, and construction techniques. It's true, footings cost next to nothing to install. Pre-formed square footings not only increases stability and bearing capacity and result in a pier that resists uplift caused by frost or high velocity winds but, best of all, they take less than three hours to attach to the construction tube, place in a excavated hole, backfill and pour the concrete.  Gone is the need to hand build wooden forms that took three days to construct and install!  The tradeoff in savings of labor and material to the added strength are a complete no brainer. SQUARE FOOT® by Sound Footings LLC in Vermont, inventor and holder of the original US patent for TubeBase® circa 88', (now SQUARE FOOT®) is economically made from construction orange plastic and fits tubes sizes 8 through 18 inches.  The vibrant ORANGE plastic footing forms are available in three models. The SF 22 accommodates 8 and 10" Sonotube®; the SF 28 accommodates 8, 10 and 12" Sonotube®; and the SF 32 accommodates 12, 14, 16, and 18" Sonotube® or other standard construction tube forms or concrete forming tubes. Installation instructions, concrete calculator, any type of resource you can imagine you can find on our website. In addition to searching out local laws, knowing that a product is code-evaluated can also take a load off your quality control and go a long way to ensuring a contractors reputation. SQUARE FOOT® is the only building code evaluated pre-formed square plastic concrete footing evaluated for use in North America for the simultaneous forming of a concrete footing with a Sonotube® or other standard construction tube forms! Now that there is a specific evaluation guideline for plastic footings which Sound Footings LLC helped to create, there is a framework and guideline for all future footing forms to be evaluated and approved for use in the U.S.   It's particularly confusing now because four building code evaluations companies in the USA (BOCA, NES, ICBO and SBCCI) have now merged into one main organization: ICC. These organizations all required companies like ourselves to undergo rigorous testing to get approval as “alternative materials and equipment” to original requirements set forth by coding agencies, as does the new ICC. When a product receives code evaluation and compliance (SQUARE FOOT® is ICC ES EVALUATED) specifiers can be assured that, whatever the law requires, now or for future expansion, a foundation system that includes a code evaluated footing will be approved for use. Sound Footings LLC worked directly with the ICC Evaluation Service, to develop a specific technical report on plastic concrete footing forms which provides guidance to code officials, regulatory agencies, local zoning and planning offices, specifiers, contractors and end-users available online at our resource center of www.sqfoot.com or at www.icc-es.org.  See reports ESR 1131.pdf (Footing Form Report); ESG292.pdf (Footing Form Evaluation Guideline)   Square Foot® footings-designed by contractors for contractors. SQUARE FOOT® was jointly engineered and designed by two of the largest general contractors in Vermont with 130 years of residential and commercial concrete and building experience. (www.dewcorp.com and www.sdireland.com ) Sound Footings LLC is the inventor and holder of the original United States patent (1988) and the only US owned and manufactured square plastic footing form Company in North America. We are dedicated to providing the construction industry with the most technologically advanced superior footing forms products. It's just a click away to see how quickly and easily you can install SQUARE FOOT® plastic concrete footing forms. For more information, visit www.sqfoot.com For an instructional video on how to install pier footing forms, click here!