Garage Foundation

Originally Posted By: rstephens
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I did a termite inspection on a house today. The home is probably valued at over $250,000 it has an attached 2 car garage, the living area of the house is 8" block foundation, here is the question the garage has a floating slab and the funny thing was the foundation is single brick with no other support. There is not any places where there are double brick or the like for added support I am just looking for responses to this I have never seen a foundation on such a new home or even an old home with out additional support every so many feet.


Originally Posted By: roconnor
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Is it possible that the brick was used to bring the sill plate up off the ground (6" to 8" clear) as grade is usually pretty close to the top of a slab at a garage, which could actually be sitting on a thicker foundation wall below. Is it possible that its an 8" or thicker foundation below?


Are you sure it was a floating slab with a joint all around? Is it possible it's a thickened edge slab and the brick was used to bring up the sill. It would usually be concrete block to bring up the sill, but I guess brick is possible. Any signs of cracks or settlement?


--
Robert O'Connor, PE
Eagle Engineering ?
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NACHI Education Committee

I am absolutely amazed sometimes by how much thought goes into doing things wrong

Originally Posted By: rstephens
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It is a floating slab it is possible that the brick may be sitting on a block foundation below grade though it was not visible from above and appeared that the brick went below the slab, No visible cracks all-n-all it appeared to be a very good pour. I was just curious about this because I have checked many homes regarding termites and I pay close attention to the foundations and I have never seen one like this one. It was in good condition no cracks or bulges I was also wondering about the stability of a setup like this. The house is less than 5 years old. I wonder what the future holds. It was pretreated for termites, As most homes built in the last 10 years the termiticide does not last very long and it did have termites.


Originally Posted By: rstephens
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also the clearance from the top of the slab to the sill is over 1ft. The clearance on the outside of the wall is over 1ft.