How To Guide: Residential Concrete Footing Construction

To explain a little further, the footing is a standalone structure that ultimately provides support for the masonry foundation walls that are built “on top” of the footing. It is what separates your home’s foundation from the ground. The two most common types of footings are the perimeter footing and pier footings. We will dive into those in the next section.

Explore All of The Various Types of Masonry Bricks

Burnt clay bricks are the most common brick in the United States. They are simply made by pressing wet clay into pre-formed molds to give them the desired shape and size. After being pressed into the molds, the bricks go through a short drying process before being fired in a kiln.

Burnt clay bricks in combination with concrete bricks (cmu) are used for almost all residential foundation and veneer projects. This includes masonry porches, columns, and brick fencing also. It’s what we use 90% of the time here at Four Oaks Residential

Do you need steel rebar in your footings?

As you can see in the photo above, steel rebar is simply steel that is melted into the shape of long tubes. The term “rebar” is short for reinforcing bar and is used in concrete to increase it’s tensile strength. Rebar is typically constructed with high yield steel by heating it to its liquid form and then shaping the tubes to spec. Steel rebar can last up to 80 years before it starts to decompose. This makes building with concrete much more stabile and long lasting.