Posted by MoparNorm on Thursday, March 11, 2004 at 9:28AM :
In Reply to: Re: Boy did I screw mine up!! posted by Tim Holloway on Thursday, March 11, 2004 at 8:41AM :
Hi Tim,
Anything worth doing is worth doing correctly. I assume that is why you like Dodge Trucks.
John was already going to install a footing, I just let him know that his footing size was a tad overkill, unless he needed to get below his frost line. Your slab is floating above the frost line, only time will tell what happens to it. The amount of concrete that we are talking about is probably not more than $450 worth. Not a large enough sum to gamble losing the entire structure over by saving that small amount.
Better does not always mean more expensive, either in the long term or the short term. See my comments about wire mesh vs. re-bar.
I hand mixed and placed a pump house slab on the side of a mountain in the Sierra's over 30 years ago. Because of field conditions, 105 degrees, no potable water within 1/4 mile, mixing in a wheel barrow, etc., I did everything 'wrong'. To this day it is one of the best slabs I ever poured, not a crack one. Like I said it is an art not an science. However when someone asks for advice in a field of my expertise, I am not going to advise them to cut corners, I am going to tell them how to do it correctly and then let them decide, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him...order the correct mix design. = )
I probably wouldn't have posted but I saw so much shadetree advice that I couldn't resist.
There are NOT more proven and acceptable CORRECT ways to do it. How is he going to attach his wall properly to a 4" thick slab. The 4' slab, without foundation is not acceptable, safe or wise. I'm aware that many parts of the US do not require the structural integrity of siesmic zone designs, but with wind loads, snow loads and other factors, placing a building on top of a slab that it cannot be properly connected to is just not good advice. His 1/2" anchor bolts should project at least a minimum of 12" into the concrete, on a minimum of 4' centers (CA is 5/8 bolts, on 32" centers) You can't do that in a 4 thick slab with no footing. I don't want a pissing contest either, just don't want him to waste his money, doing it twice or losing his entire building in the first snow load and blizzard.
MN
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