Water in footings

[Bubbas Boys]

Well the crazy wet spring has allowed me to finally be able to dig our footings for our new homestead house. Although it was dry most of way down I have about 4 inches of water standing. We are suppose to get more rain wed so really want to get them poured before then. My question is can I just pump water out the best I can and clean the trench bottom out and pour? Didn't know what if any affect the soft bottom will have on the strength of our footings. Thanks.

[MushCreek]

The bottom needs to be firm, undisturbed soil. We had mud in our footers, and the inspector came back to make sure we had the mud cleaned out before we poured. If it's soft, it's not good.

[jwal10]

Here you need 6" of good tamped crushed rock when it is wet....James

[wharton]

In commercial construction this type of problem is pretty common, since staying on schedule is critical, and there usually isn't time to wait for everything to dry out on it's own. Most excavators have at least some experience with "dewatering" if they work in wet climates. The goal is to create a place below the elevation of the bottom of the footing to provide a drainage basin, then pump it out from there. In this case the first move would be to dig a small pit at least ten inches deeper than the bottom of the footer , and 18" round, adjacent to the footer. Now throw a few inches of small gravel in the bottom to keep the pump from sucking tight to the mud in the bottom, and use a small sump pump to drain everything. If the weather allows, the trench bottom should firm up pretty quickly. If not, drain all the standing water off and use flat bottom shovels to shave the mud off the trench bottom. I built my first house in '89, and poured countless numbers of footers since. I've shoveled enough mud, ice and snow out of trench bottoms to last a few lifetimes. Good luck, it a sucky job.

[wharton]

Originally Posted by jwal10

Here you need 6" of good tamped crushed rock when it is wet....James

Highly dependent on soil conditions. Some places it will be a great idea, others will fail unless there is a geotex fabric below the gravel. Where I build, it's not uncommon for the well driller to report 40-60' of pure clay until bedrock. In that situation, local inspectors often require oversized footings, and they keep a 3' long concrete pin in their truck to use as a soil probe while inspecting footers. If they can easily push the pin in with no resistance, they arrange to inspect as the excavator removes poor soil and replaces it with gravel. When things are really questionable, it's pretty amazing what a properly installed layer of geotex, a layer of 4" rock and a top coat of 3/4" rock run in with a plate tamper does. You can literally turn a dozer eating mud hole into a civilized road.