Poured steps

I just finished demoing my fieldstone steps and am about to install forms for poured concrete. The old steps were mortared (poorly) fieldstone over rubble. I want to reuse the rubble to save on concrete. The new steps will be 4" concrete reinforced with rebar. I have some questions.

Is remesh a better choice than rebar? I'm using rebar to tie to the foundation.

The rubble was mostly large stone and there were lots of voids. I plan on putting some of the large stones back and trying to fill the voids with pea stone and sand as much as possible. Do I have to be concerned with small spaces in the rubble or should I just use smaller fill? I'm thinking about pouring a few bags of dry concrete over the rubble and wetting it down with a hose. Is there any benefit to this?

 

Either rebar or wire screen should work just fine for you steps.

Since the fieldstone was installed over the rubble, the rubble has probably already done whatever settling it is going to do. The concrete should be even more stable since it will fill the voids a bit. Having said that, I think it is always better to overbuild a bit rather than to under-build and I would opt for some pea gravel to fill the larger voids. I would avoid turning the rubble into a solid piece of concrete by adding dry cement and watering -- would make a future demolition more difficult.

Cheers,
Don