huangyhg

horiz. masonry jt. reinf. below grade?
there is some confusion at our office of whether horiz. mas. jt. reinf. should be put in the masonry foundation wall below grade. according to ncma tech. support, horizontal mas. joint reinforcing is not required by code. i would like to get a consensus of whether other engineers require it below grade or not.
the main purpose of the reinf. is crack control. in floor slabs, generally they want the wire reinf. in the top 1/3 depth of the slabs, and they do not care about cracks in the bot. 1/3. does this interpretation also apply to masonry foundation walls below grade, where the cracks will not be seen. i'm interested in your opinions. thank you.
we detail the masonry control joints to go down to the foundation. this is because you can seal a control joint, but a crack can let larger amounts of water under the slab and cause problems. however, it is typical in the field that the contractor will not interrupt the reinforcing for the continuous bond beam at the finished floor level as they should. so, the wall can't move anyway. i think because of this reason, i have often seen it detailed with the control joint stopping at finished floor.

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