Footings & Foundations — ICC B1 Practice Questions

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Answers and explanations for these are in the app.

• The forms for a continuous concrete wall footing measure 20 inches wide and 5 inches deep beneath an 8-inch foundation wall, and the 20-inch width is adequate for the soil and the load. How should the inspector treat the depth of the forms?
• The trench bottom measures 40 inches below finished grade, and the contractor intends to place an 8-inch-thick footing in it. Applying the published local frost line of 42 inches, what is the correct inspection result?
• The completed structure is a freestanding light-frame storage building, 12 feet by 16 feet, with an 8-foot eave height, sitting on thickened-edge footings that stop 16 inches below grade and touching no other structure. What is the correct disposition?
• One continuous plate section will run 22 feet along a foundation wall. Using half-inch anchor bolts at the code maximum spacing, with a bolt required no more than 12 inches from each end of the plate section, what is the smallest number of bolts that can hold this plate down?
• Along one wall the half-inch anchor bolts are spaced 5 feet apart and embedded 7 inches into the concrete, but the bolt nearest the end of a plate section sits 20 inches in from that end. What is the correct finding for this wall?
• A 30-inch-long piece of sill plate sits between a foundation step and a formed opening, and the crew has held it down with a single half-inch anchor bolt centered in its length. Everything else on the wall checks out. What should the inspector do about that short piece?
• The basement wall encloses finished habitable space, the site is known to have a high water table, and the contractor has brushed on a bituminous dampproofing coating from the footing to grade. How should the inspector treat this exterior treatment?
• The concrete foundation wall retains about 7 feet of earth and encloses a finished basement, and no drain pipe or drainage stone has been placed at the footing. The contractor says the dampproofing coating makes a drain unnecessary. How should the inspector respond?
• The perforated drain pipe sits on 2 inches of washed gravel, but the stone above it is only 4 inches deep, stops flush with the outside edge of the footing, and no fabric has been laid over it before backfill. What is the correct call?
• About 7 feet of soil is already piled against the wall, the first floor framing has not been installed, and no kickers or bracing of any kind are visible inside the basement. What should the inspector do right now?
• At the rear of the house the landscaper has brought soil up so that the concrete foundation wall stands only 3 inches above the adjacent finished grade for a run of about 20 feet. What is the correct finding?
• Under the main girder the framer has installed a solid sawn wood column of nominal 3-inch by 4-inch dimensions, resting on a poured pier and carrying two floor loads above. Judging the column itself, what should the inspector do?
• The installed column is a 2-inch-diameter steel pipe set on the basement slab and welded to a plate under the girder, and no engineering has been submitted for it. What is the correct inspection outcome?
• One pressure-preservative-treated wood post carrying the girder is set with its bottom end resting directly on the earth of the crawl space floor, with no pier or pedestal under it. How should the inspector treat this post?
• On the side yard, which is open ground with room to work and no retaining wall or lot line in the way, the finished soil falls only 2 inches over the first 10 feet away from the foundation. What is the correct finding for that side?
• The trench bottoms are a firm, uniform sandy clay, no soil investigation was made for the lot, and the footing widths on the approved plans were sized using an assumed load-bearing value of 2,000 pounds per square foot. How should the inspector treat that assumed value?
• The soil report on file describes dense sandy gravel across the entire lot, but along one 25-foot run the trench bottom is a damp soft material that a probe rod pushes into with hand pressure. What is the appropriate response from the inspector?
• The ascending slope behind the house is steeper than 1 unit vertical in 1 unit horizontal and rises 50 feet above the building pad, and the tape reads 12 feet from the toe of that slope to the face of the foundation wall. What should the inspector require?
• At one corner the trench was dug roughly 14 inches below the design elevation by mistake, and the crew has pushed the loose spoil back into the hole and tamped it with the excavator bucket to bring the bottom back up to grade. How should the inspector rule on that corner?
• Along the shaded north side of the excavation the trench bottom carries a frozen crust about 3 inches thick, and the contractor wants to place concrete on it right away because the forecast promises a thaw by afternoon. How should the inspector rule?
• The locally adopted frost depth is 42 inches. Along the rear wall the trench bottom measures 44 inches below the ground the crew is standing on, and the approved grading plan lowers the finished grade at that wall by 8 inches. What should the inspector conclude?
• The approved plans call for one row of vertical bars held toward the interior face of a 10-inch concrete wall, but the crew has wired the bars to the form ties so they sit centered in the form, about 5 inches from each face. How should the inspector treat this?
• Concrete was placed to roughly mid height of an 8-foot basement wall and then stopped for three days, and the surface where the two placements meet is smooth, dusty and shows no keyway, roughening or added dowels. That wall will retain about 6 feet of earth. How should the inspector proceed?
• Along the front wall the sill plate is held down with 3/8-inch-diameter anchor bolts spaced 4 feet apart, embedded 8 inches into the concrete, each with a nut and washer drawn tight. Judging the anchorage, what should the inspector do?
• One plate section runs 13 feet 6 inches along the foundation and carries three half-inch anchor bolts, one set 10 inches in from each end of the piece and one at the midpoint, each embedded 7 inches into the concrete. Applying the general spacing and end distance limits, what should the inspector conclude?
• Rather than half-inch cast-in-place bolts, the crew set galvanized steel straps into the wet concrete and bent them up over the sill plate, and the product carries an evaluation report showing capacity equal to bolts at the spacing installed. How should the inspector treat the substitution?
• The block foundation encloses an unfinished basement, the site drains well and no high water table has been reported, and the crew has sprayed a bituminous dampproofing coating directly onto the bare block from the top of the footing upward. What should the inspector require?
• The dampproofing on the outside of the wall begins at the top of the footing and stops roughly 18 inches below the finished grade line marked on the survey stakes, and the contractor explains that the upper part of the wall stays dry anyway. How should the inspector rule?
• The perforated pipe is bedded in washed stone that extends past the edge of the footing and rises well above the top of the pipe, and the crew is ready to push soil back against the stone with no fabric or other covering laid over it. What should the inspector require?
• The approved plans show no passive soil gas system, the county sits inside a zone the federal maps rate as high radon potential, and the jurisdiction adopted the residential code without adopting its radon control appendix. How should the inspector answer the builder?
• The crew has adhered rigid foam plastic board to the outside face of the concrete foundation wall, carrying it from the sill down about 4 feet below finished grade, and the wall above supports conventional wood framing. What should the inspector do?
• The bottom plates of the exterior walls rest directly on the concrete slab, which bears on the ground, and the plates carry no preservative treatment stamp and no sill sealer or other barrier beneath them. How should the inspector rule?
• The material going back against the wall is excavated spoil mixed with broken form lumber, chunks of scrap concrete and frozen clods the size of a five-gallon bucket, and the operator is dropping it in full-height lifts straight down the face of the wall. What should the inspector do?
• The soil along that wall is far softer than the design assumed, and the contractor produces a manufacturer catalog with capacity tables for a proprietary helical pier system and asks you to release the change so the crew can start installing this afternoon. What is the correct path?
• The approved plans show the main girder delivering 1,150 pounds for every lineal foot it carries, and they rate each masonry pier with its footing at 9,200 pounds. The crew has set the piers 10 feet apart on center along the girder line. What should the inspector conclude?
• The studs and plywood in the below-grade wall carry a treatment stamp for above-ground use, and the walls are fastened with hot-dipped galvanized nails. What is the correct finding?
• The anchor bolts have been dropped into open cores of the top course with no grout around them, and the cores below are open to the bottom of the wall. How should the inspector judge this anchorage?
• The longitudinal bars have been supported on broken brick so that about 1 inch of space remains between the steel and the earth beneath it. What cover does the code require in this location?
• The wall stands 9 feet 0 inches from the top of the footing to the top of the wall, the finished exterior grade will be 1 foot 8 inches below the top of the wall, and the basement floor surface is 8 inches above the top of the footing. What is the height of unbalanced backfill?
• Along the downhill wall the ground on the uphill side of the trench stands 12 inches higher than the ground on the downhill side, and the trench bottom measures 42 inches below the uphill grade. How does this footing stand against the required depth?
• The plans give a 12,000-pound total load at the column and the soils information for the lot gives a presumptive load-bearing value of 2,000 pounds per square foot. What is the smallest square footing that will carry it?
• The plans reproduce the footing width table for the 2,000-pound-per-square-foot soil on this lot: light-frame two stories, 15 inches; light-frame two stories with brick veneer, 21 inches. The formed footing measures 16 inches wide. What is the finding?
• For about 12 feet the trench bottom is sound bedrock and the rest of that wall bears on firm sandy clay, with the change occurring abruptly over roughly a foot. How should the inspector judge this bearing surface?
• The trench along the low side of the house is entirely in placed fill roughly 5 feet deep, and the contractor says the fill has had a full winter to settle. How should the inspector proceed?
• The trench sides are sloughing as you watch, sand has run into the bottom in several places, and the trench width varies from 18 to 26 inches along its length. How should the inspector judge this proposal?
• The crew has sprayed a bituminous dampproofing coating directly onto the block face from the footing to the grade line, over the bare units and mortar joints. What is the correct finding?
• Over one 5-foot length the trench bottom drops 8 inches and the crew intends to place that stretch as a ramp rather than stepping it. How should the inspector judge that?
• The crew has framed a 4-foot-wide buck for a future walkout door in a wall carrying two stories, with the wall reinforcement simply cut at the opening and nothing added above it. How should the inspector proceed?
• The perforated pipe is correctly bedded in washed stone all the way around, and at the northeast corner it turns and discharges through the stem wall onto the crawl space grade under the adjoining wing. What is the correct finding?
• The footing was left uncovered overnight, and this morning the top surface is frozen, crumbles under a screwdriver and shows ice crystals in the paste. How should the inspector respond?
• The crew has formed the concrete foundation wall 6 inches thick beneath that 8-inch masonry wall, and the plans show no ledge or corbel at the top of the foundation. What is the correct finding?
• The approved plans give a total load of 2,500 pounds coming down each deck post, and the soils information for the site gives a presumptive load-bearing value of 1,500 pounds per square foot. The crew has set 16-inch-diameter tubes. What is the finding?

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