So long story short, the people who owned the home before me had a deck. They converted the deck to a partially finished sunroom that looked like crap, so I decided to remodel it and make it a nursery for our second little one due in March.

It's held up right now by (what look like) 3 4x12 posts....no concrete...just straight into the earth.

I plan to dig around the exterior of the room, and pour an actual foundation. Then use cinder blocks to go up to the sill, and then use rock fascia over the cinder blocks.

Surprisingly, the room is level. It hasn't sunk at all due to the poor foundation (maybe because it's only 90 sq ft) I live in Charlotte, NC, so I had a few questions.

How deep should I dig the trench for the footings? I know up north it's a minimum of 42", but have no idea what it is down here in the south. Do I need to reinforce the concrete with anything? I plan to just leave the posts in place, slightly jack up the room to get the cinder blocks under there and then put it back down.

Anyone advice is appreciated

 

Your local permit office will know where your frost line is and what they expect as far as footers go. Normally footers are 2' wide and 8" thick. A rough guess would be your footer needs to be 2' deep. Rebar is normally set in the footer but may or may not be required by your local code.

You might need better support for the room while you are excavating and blocking up the foundation. While the wood posts might be stable now, they may not be once you start removing dirt.

 

You should consider removing the wood columns before building the concrete foundation. Sooner or later, they will start to rot, and even stink when rotted enough. And removing them after they're surrounded by and embedded in concrete will not be an easy task.

Using concrete blocks instead of cinder blocks will make for stronger and more durable stemwalls.

 

maybe i'm showin' my age but i don't think 1 can even buy cinder blks anymore, can we ? thought all avail is conc blk,,, anyways, the house in atl has the eat-in kitchen's dining area bumped out 8' x 10' wide,,, 1'8 x 1'8 x 1' conc fnds next to the house w/p/t'd 8 x 8' columns,,, outside steel supports are conc fill'd 4" sched 60 steel pipe same size fnds,,, NO idea IF there's rebar or not in any,,, charlotte's weather's about the same but you may get a bit more frost in the ground

 

I haven't bought any block in 10 yrs or so but cinder block was still available locally. I'm thinking it was about 10% cheaper but my memory is a little fuzzy The concrete block sold around here is a lot different than the concrete block I was used to in fla. The fla concrete block was a lot denser, the tenn concrete block is more porous.

 

conc's different in fl & ga/sc/tn, too - all due to local mtls, etc - even considering aggregate's shipp'd in to fl

 

SO....I just looked at the stone veneer 'airstone' at lowes. The stuff is $50 for 8 friggin square feet. So I'd be looking at close to $500 for the stuff.

What other more cost effective options would you guys go with as opposed to putting the stone veneer over it? I thought about brick, but the company doesn't make the brick I need to match the rest of the foundation on the house any more.

What would my other options be?

 

You could cover the block with stucco, that would likely be the lowest price option.