footing depth

Emailed question:
I’m not understanding the part of how we get the footing depth.

Design a strategy follows:

1. Start calculating your footing depth by thinking about the givens
2. Set ground floor to elevation 0
3. Utilize the section from Matt’s to set the street level to -2’-7”
4. Look at your selected boring report to sketch of the earth under your building
5. Use boring labeled B11, B16, B8, B5, or MW-7D as your test case
6. Set as your Street level +10’ on the boring diagram
   [this is a change what we discussed in class, in class we set it at +25’ but we changed the level in the evening section, you may use either however =10’ will give you a more interesting case study]
7. Diagram different soil types and the weight they can support on your sketch
8. set your footing depth as follows depending on your foundation type:
9. slab on grade, as shallow as possible

• slab on grade, as shallow as possible
  [Depending on your sketch you can make the case that this is not an appropriate foundation type and switch to crawl space or full cellar]
• Crawl space, minimum depth with 3’ minimum crawl space
  [use gravel under your building]
• Full cellar, design your cellar floor depth, you should have a minimum clear space of 8’ between ceiling and top of floor
  [your footing it goes at least 1’-8” below your top of cellar floor (see assignment sketch)]