banh66

contacted a local structural engineer today and sent him the pictures. He said what they did is fine and it is not necessary for him to come out to see the actual work. And he asked " is this xxx builder? they are pretty reputable" He probably figured it out by the house address. I guess this guy may has connection with builder. I will contact more but it is really hard to find one just by searching online.

Wow, I am really scared to continue with this builder now. This is a big local builder in Pittsburgh, they have ~ 30 communities and claim they are Pittsburgh's #1 custom home builder... I don't know if the footer of other homes they have built in the subdivision had forms and keyways. But I guess they are the same as ours. We met with them today and was told if we back out, our earnest money could not be returned ($20,000). so I guess we are screwed. Not sure if we have a case if we sue them. But we will have a structural engineer to look at it first. Again, thank you for your help

There will be a walk-out basement. So those old footer in the back of the house will be the ground level of the backyard (right?) Specifically, what are those reasons that the old footer should be removed?

Here are more pictures we took at the home site showing the new and existing footers. http://picasaweb.google.com/gt8739/Unti ... directlink I am not sure how the rebars were placed in the original footer. Thank you all for help

The house will be on level ground, and then ~ 22 feet level ground in the backyard, then there is a rather steep slope in the back. That is why we want the house to sit 10-foot forward to make the usable backyard bigger. The new footer is at the same level as the old one (please see the picture). And yes, they put the new and old footer in undisturbed earth. Please see the picture http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CF ... directlink (somehow, I could not directly upload the picture) Thanks a lot

We are building a new house with a builder. They made a mistake by putting our house 62-foot away from the curb other than 52 fee as we wanted. That made our backyard very small, ~22-foot deep. When we found it out, they already poured concrete to the footer. We were not happy with it. So they added new footer to the existing one to make the foundation 10-foot forward. According to them, the new and existing foundation were linked by three #4 rebars. We are really worried about future structural problems with this foundation because the new and existing foundation may separate? But they insisted that there should be no problem. Should we build the house on the modified foundation? Is it safe to leave those old footer in the backyard? or maybe we should build on the original foundation. Any thoughts? thanks a lot