Canadian Single Family Housing, do foundations need reinforcement

[woodman1967]

Hello all,

I've noticed more and more that designers are specing reinforcement for concrete foundation walls. In this case I am talking about standard construction, nothing fancy. I am talking about single story or two story homes that are typically rectangular in shape, about 28'x 48'. No point loads on the walls and we're talking 8' tall foundation walls, typically 8" thick.

From my understanding the 2015 NBCC for Canada (I'm in eastern Canada) typically most of these types of foundations do not need reinforcement. There are some cases that will require it of course.

Is it just becoming industry standard anyway?

Thanks for your time.

 

[Craig_H]

Take a look at Table 9.15.4.2.-A

 

[STpipe]

Are you sure those walls don't have a unique condition like laterally unsupported at the top, or large openings that would make the foundation wall considered to be laterally unsupported?

 

[jayrod12]

Locally our province has adopted the NBCC2020 with some modifications. Our modifications include specifying reinforcing (that by the way is far below minimum steel) in both the vertical and horizontal directions. The older homes in our locale with horizontal only, or no reinforcing, have performed extremely poorly and most require reinforcement or replacement.

 

[SinStrucEng]

I operate in Ontario, and all (100%) of my homes have reinforcement in the foundation walls. Vertical and horizontal steel in the stem, with footing dowels providing overlap with the vertical bars in the stem. Better to be safe than sorry.

As someone said it in another thread (forgot who, sorry), owners or contractors who question this get asked - do you prefer the building to be over-engineered, or under-engineered?