Constructing a Building: Footings, Types, Construction Method, Design, and Termite Protection

This article discusses the process of constructing a building, including footings, types, construction method, design, and termite protection. It covers topics such as soil bearing, load division on footing, and more.

Running head: CONSTRUCTING A BUILDING
Constructing a Building
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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................1
Footings Detail...............................................................................................................1
Type of Footings............................................................................................................2
Construction Method......................................................................................................4
Soil bearing....................................................................................................................4
Footing Trenches............................................................................................................5
The division of Load on Footing....................................................................................5
Design............................................................................................................................9
Requirement for Termite Protection for Medium Rise Apartment..............................10

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Introduction
In order to survive, the basic need of a human are food, clothe, and shelter. In this
time of globalization, the human beings are making developments rapidly. It is a challenge
for a person to keep up with that pace of development and maintain the quality of his
lifestyle. People of this era are putting ample amount of effort to find a shelter for them that is
affordable as well as efficient. Home is a place, where a person feels safe and comfortable,
surrounded by known faces. In addition, it determines in which social strata that person
belongs. It is the wish of every human being to live in a place that offers safety from both
manmade and natural disasters, and provides a peaceful and pleasant ambience. Another need
of people in their residence is that it will provide all the necessary facilities and natural
resources that a person needs to live. In a community, there should also be a place for the
businesspersons to conduct their work. In the industrial areas, facilities should be available
that are required to perform the industrial activities. All these requirements demand that the
architect, while designing the building constructions, must do an extensive plan to fulfil the
spatial, environmental and visual needs. The next step is to determine the fabric that is most
suited to the design of the construction. Based on the construction design, the necessary
material will be selected along with the process in which the floor, foundations, roof and wall
will be built. Therefore, it is evident that clear perception on the requirements of the
constructions, materials and methods is necessary to develop correct construction method
(Bažant, 2014).
Footings Detail
Footing is a unit that determines the amount of loads can be transmitted to the soil or
the base in order to support the entire building structure. It is an essential element in

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construction as it helps to detect the correct amount of load that can possibly be channelled to
the soil without crossing the highest limit of bearing capacity (Li, Tian & Cassidy, 2014).
This helps the prevention of excessive settlement of the structures, overturning and sliding,
and to minimize the differential settlement. As the settlement depends on the type of soil,
intensity of load, and the height of foundation, design of the footing changes when other
settlement possibilities appear. The strength of compression of concrete is more than the soil,
the contact area between the footing and soil should be larger than the contact area between
the walls and the columns (Haber, Saiidi & Sanders, 2014).
Type of Footings
Footings can be divided into two categories –
1. Shallow Foundation
2. Deep foundation
Shallow foundation is a kind of building foundation that transfers the loads of the
building extremely near to the surface (Das, 2017). Footing can be of four types, namely –
 Column Footing or Pad Footing
 Strap or Cantilever Footings
 Raft or Mat Footings
 Wall or Strip Footings
1. Column or Pad Footing: This footing has two categories- Combined and Isolated.

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Isolated footings are economical and mainly found in rectangle or square shape, and the
column is positioned the centre of the square or on the middle of the rectangle. Combine
footings, on the other hand, are found in rectangular or in trapezoidal shape. These kind
of footings have two columns.
2. Strap or Cantilever Footings: This kind of footing is basically a combination of two
footings. The two footings are joined by a beam or strap and each of them has a
column.
3. Raft or Mat Footings: The type of footing that is in general positioned under the entire
building construction is called the raft or mat footing.
4. Wall or Strip Footings: This kind of footing is basically multiple concrete strips put
side by side to distribute the load of a bearing wall into the soil (Chen & Abu-
Farsakh, 2015).
Deep foundations are placed at the end of the ground surface as the condition of the
surface can effect the capacity of bearing (Mirsayapov & Koroleva, 2014). Pile foundations

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are also a type of foundations long and slender columns that transmits the building load from
the low bearing capacity soil to the high bearing capacity soil (Fleming et al., 2014).
Construction Method
Constructing a building involves several processes, such as the footing, foundation,
structuring pillars, roofs and walls. The process of foundation is also has different types –
stone, soil, concrete and block, floating slab, pole, beam and pier. In the time of construction
foundation, it is important to use the protective elements such as waterproofing, termite
protection, strong base for arch or weak frames, in order to increase the stability of the
building construction. The next step of building construction is the wall. Walls are of two
types – walls that can bear loads and walls that cannot bear loads. Labours should be skilful
in the process of founding the walls, as they are one of the most crucial portion of a building.
The foundation of roof needs special attention in the selection of materials. Flooring
foundation also requires skilled labours.
Soil bearing
Soil bearing is one of the most essential part of a building construction. The surface
layer of soil is loose and has less compressing power. That is why it must be discarded and
instead trench should be built for the purpose of footing. The design of the footing depends
on the bearing capacity of the soil. The table given under is to understand the different level
of bearing ability of the soil.

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Soil Type kN/m²
Loose sand 160 - 270
Compact clay 215 - 270
Dry compact clay 320 - 540
Red earth - 320
Murom - 430
Rock - 1700
Alluvial soil, loam soil 80 - 160
Soft, wet, pasty soil 27 - 35
Footing Trenches
The trenches are made for footing and hence, needs to be adequately deep to have a
strong hold. In the particular case that is given above, the trenches need to have 1 metre of
depth. In order to avoid leakage, soft pockets need to be filled with sand or concrete. It is
essential that there is no water logging as it makes the footing material weak. Proper planning
should be done in order to level the trench. According to Srivastava, Goyal and Raghuvanshi
(2013), the thickness of the trench should be apt for the installation of the guiding peg.
The division of Load on Footing
The purpose of footing is to spread the building load into the soil and therefore, it is
considered a significant element of construction. This means that the firmness of the
construction is equally proportionate to the vastness of the area. Wall foundation requires
long concrete footings. Cement, sand and gravel should be mixed in the ratio of 1:3:5 for
footing. In time of material selection for footing, it is important to keep the threats of
moisture, wind and termites in mind, and select the materials that are durable (Janulíková &

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Stará, 2013). According to Shirvani and Shooshpasha (2015), 150 mm distance between the
foundation and the ground will be able to protect the wall from the water.
1. Load division on each wall
Roof load - 130kN 65kN
Wall load - 16 x 0.9kN 14.4kN
Floor load - 7/32 x 998kN 218.4kN
Foundation load - 16 x 0.2 x 24kN 76.8kN
Estimated footing 0.4 x 0.2 x 16 x 24kN 30.7kN
Total 405.3kN
Force per unit of length 405.3/ 16 25.3kN/ m
assumed width of 0.4, 25.3/0.4 63.3kN/m²
2. Load on each pier
Floor load - 1/8 x 998kN 124.8
Pier 0.3 x 0.3 x 1 x 24kN 2.2
Footing estimate 0.8 x 0.8 x 0 5 x 24kN 7.7
Total 134.7kN
Load/ m² 210kN/ m²
1 x 1 x 0 7 for better quality 144kN/m²

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Spread footings for columns
Spread footings for walls

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Strap footing
Combined footings for columns and walls

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Design
Thereafter,
Size of the Column 230*380
Load 400.69KN
Bearing capacity of soil 250 KN/m2
Total load 440.76KN
Area of footing 440.76/250 = 1.76m2
The side of footing in same column ratio 4.48m
Short side of footing 1.0 m
Long side of footing 1.70 m
Upward soil pressure 260 KN/m2

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Requirement for Termite Protection for Medium Rise Apartment
Termites are considered to a potential threat of a building as they are found all around
the world. They consume the cellulose of the woods (Akhtari & Nicholas, 2013) that are used
in construction and destroy those. Termites require getting in touch with soil and water to get
in the wood and damage those. Thereafter, while constructing a building it should be made
termite proof. The aim is to destroy the contact between the ground and the timber that are
being used in the construction. Preparing a floor of slabs under the building that is being
constructed will keep the termites away. Another way to make the building termite proof is to
use termite shields. The soil of the construction area should be treated with chemicals to
destroy the termites (Prajapati et al., 2014). Taking these measures can make a building
termite free.

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Reference List
Akhtari, M., & Nicholas, D. (2013). Evaluation of particulate zinc and copper as wood
preservatives for termite control. European Journal of Wood and Wood Products,
71(3), 395-396.
Bažant, Z. (2014). Methods of foundation engineering. Elsevier.
Chen, Q., & Abu-Farsakh, M. (2015). Ultimate bearing capacity analysis of strip footings on
reinforced soil foundation. Soils and Foundations, 55(1), 74-85.
Das, B. M. (2017). Shallow foundations: bearing capacity and settlement. CRC press.
Fleming, K., Weltman, A., Randolph, M., & Elson, K. (2014). Piling engineering. CRC
press.
Haber, Z. B., Saiidi, M. S., & Sanders, D. H. (2014). Seismic performance of precast columns
with mechanically spliced column-footing connections. ACI Structural Journal,
111(3), 639-650.
Janulíková, M., & Stará, M. (2013). Reducing the shear stress in the footing bottom of
concrete and masonry structures. Procedia Engineering, 65, 284-289.
Li, J., Tian, Y., & Cassidy, M. J. (2014). Failure mechanism and bearing capacity of footings
buried at various depths in spatially random soil. Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering, 141(2), 04014099.
Mirsayapov, I. T., & Koroleva, I. V. (2014, August). Bearing capacity and deformation of the
base of deep foundations’ ground bases. In Geotechnical Aspects of Underground
Construction in Soft Ground: Proc. intern. symp., Seoul, Korea, 25-27 August (p.
401).
Prajapati, N., Makwana, A. H., Pitroda, J., & Vyas, C. M. (2014). Anti-Termite Treatment:
Need of Construction Industry.

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Shirvani, R. A., & Shooshpasha, I. (2015). Experimental study on load-settlement behaviour
of cement stabilised footing with different dimensions on sandy soil. Arabian Journal
for Science and Engineering, 40(2), 397-406.
Srivastava, A., Goyal, C. R., & Raghuvanshi, A. (2013). Load settlement response of footing
placed over buried flexible pipe through a model plate load test. International Journal
of Geomechanics, 13(4), 477-481.