Browse Forums Paving & Concreting 1 Aug 21, 2013 2:16 am Hi, I'm an Aussie living in Japan. I bought an old house built about 100 years ago. It is a two story post and beam house built on 50 m2 of land. It is in terrible condition and really should be knocked down and rebuilt. Unfortunately, after a law change in the 80s, some houses can't be rebuilt. (if they are on roads that are too narrow etc) That is the case with my place. The house is a 10m by 5m rectangle, over the years work has been (badly) done on it. A slab was poured in 3 quarters of the house in some parts right around the posts. The south eastern corner of the house is still post on beam sitting on large rocks in the dirt. This part of the house is sagging (a lot). Ideally the whole house would be jacked up and a new foundation put in- but that isn't an option. Would pouring a footing (45x15cm) and short foundation wall only in the south eastern corner of the house work be a bad idea? There is space to dig and I have plenty of temporary jack posts to support the floor while its being done. The soil quality is very good. If possible I want to put footings into the north eastern corner of the house after the south eastern side is done. The north face of the house sits on old rock blocks and is very solid, perhaps just needing retrofitted anchor bolts. Another option may be to use cylinder concrete forms under each post. As for building codes, Japan has them, but they don't apply to retrofitting old houses- they are very much off the map. Current post and beams buildings in my area must be built with a minimum of 45cmx15cm footing with a foundation wall of 40cmx12cm I understand it's a bit of a pickle, but if anyone has some useful suggestion/advice I would very much appreciate it. Happy to provided pics/ floor plans etc. Cheers, Paul Re: Japanese post and beam house needs foundation 2Nov 24, 2013 5:58 pm hi be better to look at the photos - sounds like a bit of underpinning to me. Interesting project. Have two sisters in law in Japan and looking to visit early next year . Hello everyone, After some suggestions and ideas about how to put a concrete path around the drop edge beam area on our new build. We are required to have a concrete path… 0 11021 The distance between my DEBs varies from 4.1m at the narrowest to 8.1m at the widest. 5 25913 |