Expert: Dan Griffin - 7/24/2008

Question
I am converting an attached garage into living space.  I have dug 2 holes for footers (3 and 1/2 feet deep (ohio) to support a raised floor.  I plan on pouring a footer and placing a 12 inch tube in the setting cement and filling it. My question is would it be better to backfill around the columns with pea gravel or simply returning the removed dirt.

Answer
Chris,  your garage should already have a continuous footing around the perimeter.  Your inspector may require that you verify the footing at the door way(s).  I assume you are talking about having gone through the garage floor 2 times out in the middle to create bearing pads for a mid span girder.  YOu dug down 3.5' for frost depth.

You could come up off the pads with Lally columns, cement block, etc.  You have chosen Sonotube.  I see no benefit to using gravel fill, the situation will be totally out of sight.  I would use the original dirt in your example.  If you are using truck concrete, I would just pour the whole thing to floor level - I assume you're hand batching and trying to save a bit of mixing.