amount of sonotube above ground

[dorothyinak]

Hi all,  after months of working with the city council/planning dept., our lot has finally been re-zoned to rural residential (was commercial - in a residential area!), we have 'zoning permit' in hand, and we've begun to dig holes for our sonotubes.

We plan on going 4 feet down, using the Big Foot plastic footers for support against frost heaving, even though in the maritime climate of Homer, AK, frost penetration is well above that.

The land slopes to the south, which means that there is about a 2' difference between the north line and the south line.  We are building a 16x20 cabin, using 12 sonotubes.  The 'bottom row', being lower that the top and middle rows, we were planning on buyiing the 6'lenths of tube, and burying 4' of it, to allow 2' to stick up out of the ground, to level the building.  The other tubes will be 4' in lengh (BF footer is about 1.5' tall), and having them stick out around a foot, or whatever it takes to level out.

Does this sound like an acceptable ratio of tube above ground for the bottom row?  THe tubes are 10" each.

Thanks for any and all input.

[Amanda_931]

In my area the two things that would determine how much the piers stood out of the ground would be:

termites. which unless we get a whole lot of global warming--or those horrible Taiwan jobs learn how to deal with your climate--don't count.  But at least 18" is pretty normal, plus flashings.

room.  Sooner or later you are going to have to fix something down under there, especially if the plumbing is at that end.  Wriggling under there with a sack of tools, and rigging lights so they won't get wet, when there's a plumbing leak under there is no fun at all.  

I'll let someone else address the issue of whether you can skimp on the depth.

[PEG688]

 Seem like these would be the people to ask,

http://69.20.124.116/ABS2_Bigfoot/AbsPage.aspx?ID=1258&siteid=1&lang=1#rebar

  Good luck PEG

[dorothyinak]

That website answered a lot....thanks!

[PEG688]

Your welcome   HTBH  ;)PEG