New construction questions

[Matt]

Two questions for a house I was looking at with my sister (new construction):

1) poured basement foundation walls have eyebolt style brackets that are sticking out of the walls all over the place. 2/3 of the bracket is cast into the concrete, and the other 1/3 sticks out with a big hole in the bracket. Just curious what these are all for.

2) When my house was built, the builder dug out the basement, then poured the foundation - except for the garage where they did not dig out underneath except to pour the footings. This house had the entire garage dug out, with full basement-height walls poured underneath the garage exterior walls. I imagine they will have to backfill the hole under the garage floor in order to support the weight of 3 cars...but if this is the case, why would they dig it out and pour full height walls in the first place?

Thanks

[trader4]

Never saw anything like that.

That's how I always have seen it done too.

Strange. It makes no sense to excavate the whole thing only to backfill it and compact it. Only two reasons that I can think of. If extra basement space is desired, then they could leave it as basement, but obviously doing the floor to support the cars is going to be $$$. The other is if the ground were composed of crap, like buried waste, that was unsuitable to support the garage floor.

[hrhofmann]

There was probably full perimeter excavating for the foundation drains,. The metal tabs sticking out of the concrete are what held the plywood forms in place while the poured walls were being poured.

[Jim Elbrecht]

A picture would be worth a million words here.

Why not a full basement under the garage? It doesn't take a lot of engineering. If I was going to have an attached garage I'd put my workshop under it.

Jim

[Han]

Jim Elbrecht wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I do have my workshop in the basement. But it is a ROYAL PITA to get big sheets or big lumber down the rickety stairs. So now I have a lumber cart/panelcutter in the garage to at least cut things down to manageable size. BTW, hardly anyone around here

- the town for the motor age) uses their Model T era garages for their cars.

[dpb]

I strongly suspect Jim's thinking of a walkout basement under the garage, not the empty swimming pool type. Of course, if have that in mind and there's still time to get it done, having the pour accommodate a double door would be _a_good_thing_ (tm), too...

--

[Rick]

Form ties....

[Rick]

More specific, wall ties....

[Han]

dpb wrote in news:iohdt3$734$ [e-mail]:

Yep, to both ...

[bob haller]

The contractor likely found unsuitable soil like coal under the garage floor area and had to remove it. otherwise the garage floor wouldnt be stable long term

[dpb]

Probably has an FPE panel, too... :(

There's absolutely _no_ data from which to draw such a conclusion.

[DerbyDad03]

How do you know they aren't planning to pour a slab that can hold 3 cars without being filled in underneath?

I have a friend who built a 2 level garage on his farm. The upper level holds 2 cars and is accessible from the front of the garage off of the main driveway near the house.

The lower level is accessible from the rear of the garage, after going down a steep slope off the side of the driveway.

The upper level is for his cars, the lower level is for his tractors and dirt bikes.

[Hank]

As others have said, they kept the concrete formsw from separating. Those metal tabs, or eyeholes can be broke off. Have the builder do it, or show you how.

There could have been a screw up on the excavators part and misread the prints. Ask your builder what he plans do about it. If he plans on backfilling, make sure it is compacted really well and filled with the proper material. If if it isn't filled and compacted properly, the garage floor will sink and crack in short order. If he is planning on putting a floor in that will hold the cars, make sure you get the engineers report/blueprints that states how it should be done, then make sure it is done right.

Don't be afraid to ask questions to the builder.

Hank

[Hank]

One more thing........ Whatever you do, make sure the foundation and anything underground is done correctly ( drain pipe, sumps, footers, walls and etc. ). It gets real costly trying to change anything underground.

Hank

[aemeijers]

True dat. Idiot previous owner of this place poured a new section of wall to replace the door to the original 1-car garage in the basement when they added the addition and 2-car garage on main level. He also filled in the notch in the front yard. Wish he would have just framed it in and added a 3-0 exterior door. It would have made a great woodshop. As it is, it is close to useless- no way to get a table saw in there other than in pieces, and no way to get a 4x8 panel around the corner in kitchen and down the basement stairs.

[krw]

I've seen rooms under garages, but I doubt it's code in most of the country. I'm doing mine the other way around. ;-)