How to use your Footing Plan
Your Footing Plans will have dashed footing lines, similar to a typical Structural Plan that you likely have used before. We place dimensions along these lines to indicated the length.
These dimensions are the concrete length at this line, not necessarily the length you cut your board.
The footing board length depends on three factors:
Nailing Pattern
Jog type
Board Thickness
Nailing Pattern
We strongly recommend building footings in a pattern that we call the Chase Method.
Each board has a short end and a long end. Nail through the long end of one board into the short end of the next board.
If you do this for every single board, the pattern will cause the boards perfectly end where it began.
It also makes inside-to-inside boards easier to strip.
Jog Type
There are three jog types used in almost every Footing Plans. Knowing the difference between these will help in the final step.
Board Thickness
When using Crete Sheets to cut your footing boards, you MUST account for the thickness of the adjacent boards.
These examples are all from the 3D model of our Sample Footing Plan, which has been built using the Chase Method and 2x8 material which has a thickness of 1.5” (or 1-1/2”)
Calculating Outside-to-Outside
This Outside-to-Outside footing line has a measurement of 10’ 6”
To get the cut number, we must add the thickness of the adjacent board.
Outside-to-Outside means add
10’ 6” + 1 1/2”
This cut number is 10’ 7 1/2”
Calculating Inside-to-Inside
This Inside-to-Inside footing line has a measurement of 6’ 6”
To get the cut number, we must subtract the thickness of the adjacent board.
Inside-to-Inside means subtract
6’ 6” - 1 1/2”
This cut number is 6’ 4 1/2”
Calculating Same-to-Same
Both of these Same-to-Same footing lines measure 1’-0”
These numbers are ALSO the cut numbers.
Left: the adjacent board lengths do not need to be considered.
Right: the adjacent boards cancel each other out.
Same-to-Same stays the same
The cut numbers are both 1’-0”