I have a quick question before casting the foundation for my 2-floor house. It is a concrete block wall house designed to have pad foundations with 29 reinforced concrete columns (225mmx225mm cross sections and 1500mm height) inserted into 29 footings (1m x 1m x 0.3m). The house itself is 14m x 13m with cantilevered first floor slabs. Below are the foundation layout and the foundation cross-section.

I am currently overseas but my onsite guy is proposing for the foundation block wall that should connect these columns to serve as formwork for casting the columns. Is this advisable? He wants to put the footing and column rebars in the excavation, align them as needed, then lay the foundation block walls to almost touch the column reinforcements. He plans to then use two pieces of wooden planks as formwork on the remaining two adjacent sides of the columns, and pour concrete in the square shape formed by the blocks and planks.

I am worried that since the foundation block wall must stay in place and can't removed after casting the columns like regular formwork, the concrete columns will not set and cure properly and will not achieve their maximum strength. Any suggestions from someone's experience?



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