Backfilling a Foundation Wall

I'm trying to put up a dweling house on a gentle slope, with one side of the house on a higher floor level than the other. Does this show in the footing?

Lazarous,
You may need to step the footing. The footing would look similar to a set of steps, but imagine the length of each step tread in feet, not inches.

i found your articles very useful. I'd still like to find more re building perfect forms for concrete walls and foundations, especially for bigger ones like 8'l x 16'h feet---8" width--
i'm hip to the .5"steel grid but
how can i make sure the mix properly fills the cavity?
peace

Joel,
Try doing a search on Google. You need a tool that vibrates the concrete mix.

i want know about Q.S & also about how calculate building

we are worried that our builder backfilled our foundation too soon - approx.5-7 days after poring the concrete. If the foundation happens to crack how long after backfilling would it happen?
Thank You,
Alena and Josef

We built our home 17 years ago; it is built on rock, with a minimal layer of topsoil around the preserved wood foundation. The house is built into the slope of the hill so that we have a walkout basement with windows that are close to the ground on two sides of the house. We never had any problems with water coming into the house through the windows (which have guards around them) until two or three years ago. The problem occurred after the man next door brought in about 50 loads of backfill from the municipality and elevated his land by about 20 feet. It is now significantly higher than our property at the side that is giving problems. When it rains heavily, water pours into the house through the only basement window on that side of the house. (We have no problems on the other side of the house.) There is no obvious flow of water from his land to ours (that is, a rivulet of water), but something is happening that is causing problems that did not occur over a 14 or 15 year period of time preceding his backfilling his property. (He has still not built and I don't see how he can build on backfill, which now covers the accessible section of a one acre plot.) I have put tiles under the soil to carry away excess water. I have gutters. I have plastic lining that I renewed on the side of the house. I have dug a trench to the extent possible at the foot of his land, but it is not possible to go far down because it is mostly bedrock on my land. I don't know what else I can do. I have complained to the municipality but to date they have done nothing. I am considering a civil suit if I cannot resolve the issue. I would like to know if it is possible that saturation of the backfill is resulting in drainage onto my property and saturating the limited amount of topsoil that is on top of bedrock on my property, causing the overflow into the window area so that it fills with water and flows into the walls of the house. Can this be happening without an obvious stream of water from his land to mine? Thank you for your assistance.

I've attended a few developer new open houses in the chicago suburbs & noticed foundation cracks at window wells to be common. These were aprox. 8'-10'basements w/the cracks running from the bott. corner of the conc. window opng. to the floor.
also, since concete contracts or shrinks with time and there are typically no joints provided in foundations, would'nt cracks naturally occur?
your response & input is appreciated
phil

Sherry,

Changing the surface topography is going to change the subsurface hydrology. By raising one area of the land, you change both the surface and the subsurface drainage patterns.

If you had 14-15 years of no problems, and then the problems occurred right after the topography was changed, then you are probably correct. It is worth considering whether anything else has changed (increased rainfall in recent years; other land use changes in the area) to rule out other factors, but what you say certainly sounds reasonable.