How to  Estimate Shuttering Materials for Footing

Before estimating shuttering materials for footing you need to check the availability of shuttering materials in your project. If you built any other building before you may have some shuttering materials there which you can use in your current project. The purpose of this is to reduce costs as this is the major concern in building construction.

As footing is built on the farm base of the ground, so you don’t need to make special formworks for this purpose like column, beam, and slab. Whichever shutter materials are available to you can be used for making formwork of footing.

There are various types of formwork materials can be used for footings. You can use plywood, wooden plank or even steel shutter. In my case, if I have any steel shutter in my previous project, I try to use them first.

There must be also some shutter material renting company in your area. You can hire shutter from them.

The purpose is to reduce cost as the shutter materials for footing is one-time use. Those shutters need to be reassembled for using later. So, it is better to focus on reducing cost in this respect. Whichever shuttering material you have currently try to use those first then calculate rest of the required quantity of materials.

As footing shutters are used one time only, it is better not to make new steel shutters for the footing as it is costly. Whichever materials are cheap and available in your area, use those for making formwork of the footing.

Mostly used shutter materials for footing is wooden planks, plywood or wooden board as those are cheap and widely available.

Estimating shuttering materials for footing is easy. Even a non-technical guy can estimate these.

We estimate the shuttering materials for the purpose of purchasing it. Wood and plywood have many uses in a building construction project. So if you purchase some more materials that wouldn’t be a big deal.

The purpose of this post is to make the estimating process of shutter materials for footing easy. So that anyone can estimate the materials. So I’m not going to deep technical details as most of them can be ignored.

How to Easily Estimate Shuttering Materials for Footing

A building has many footings. Not all the footings are different. There must be same types of footings. First of all, summarise the same type of footings.

Summarizing footings

Footings are normally marked as F1, F2, F3… etc.

Suppose, you have 10 numbers of F1 type footing, 6 numbers of F2 type footing, and 8 numbers of F3 type footing, etc.

Summarise them all.

For summarising similar types of footings you’ll need the footing layout drawing sheet. You’ll find the footing layout drawing in the structural drawing book.

There is a problem when summarizing footings. That is you’ll forget which footing you counted from the drawing and which isn’t. To overcome this problem take a pencil and start marking the footing one after another once counted.

After counting all types of footings check the footing layout drawing to find out if there is any unmarked footing. If you found any count that too.
After finishing this step, you’ll have the numbers of all types of footing.

Now count the total number of footings in the footing layout drawing by marking one by one with the pencil. Cross check the total number of footing you found are correct with the counted number.

This is not a thumb rule. I just apply this when counting the numbers of footings in a building. If you know any better way you can apply that. The purpose is just to get the exact numbers of different types of footing.

Deciding How Many Formworks You’ll Need

You don’t need to make formwork for all footings. For example, you have 10 numbers of F1 type footings. All these footing sizes are same. If you just make one formwork for this type, you can reuse that for all 10 footings.

This is done for cost saving. You can buy shuttering materials for all 10footings. But that isn’t cost effective.

If you are in the tight project schedule and need to finish the project on a short period of time you may need to make formwork for all footings.

There are also many things involve deciding how many formworks you need to make for one type of footing. Such as manpower – if you have enough workers, you need to have enough formwork. So that they all can work together.

Considering all these things you need to make a decision for how many formworks you’ll make for the footings.

If you want to save costs you may make one formwork for three footings and plan for making sufficient formwork for different types of footing. So that, all the workers can work at a time and no workers need to be idle. After casting one set of footings, you can remove the formworks and reuse them in the next set of footings.

Estimating Shuttering Materials for Footings

It is better to use wooden shutter materials for footing. I won’t recommend making new steel shutter for footings. Because it’s costly.

However, you don’t need to estimate exact quantity of wood or plywood for the footings of your building project. If you buy some access wooden plank or some less, that would not make a big difference.

You can use the access wooden shutter materials later in some other works. Such as lintel, staircase, etc. If you buy some less quantity of wooden plank, that won’t hamper your project progress. Because if you don’t make a formwork that wouldn’t hamper your project’s progress.

Below I’ll show you a simple process to estimate wooden shutter materials for the footing of a building project. Even a non-technical guy can estimate the shuttering materials for footings easily. Follow the steps below –

Step 1: Calculate the Periphery Length of Footing
Suppose, the size of the F1 footing is, 4′ x 6′ x 1′.

So, the periphery length of this footing is,

= (4′+6′) x 2
= 20′

Step 2: Calculating The Periphery Area of The Footing

The periphery area of the F1 footing is,
=20′ x 1′ (the height of the footing is 1′)
= 20 square feet (sft)

Step 3: Calculating Shuttering Materials

What materials do you need to make formwork for footing? You’ll need –

Wooden plank or plywood (which is available in your area): The periphery area of the F1 footing is the exactly required area of wooden plank or plywood which is 20 square feet. You need to add 5% extra when ordering wooden plank or plywood. So, required wooden plank or plywood for our footing is, 21 sft.

Wooden batten: We normally use 3″x 2″ wooden batten for the formwork of footings. The easiest way to estimate wooden batten is to use a thumb rule which is 2 rft (running feet) per shuttering area. So, required wooden batten for our example footing is,
= 2 x 21
= 42 rft (running feet)

Nail: the easiest way to estimate nail for formwork is to use a thumb rule which is 0.02 kg for one square foot of shuttering area.
So, the required nail for our example footing is,
=0.02 x 21
=0.42 kg (kilogram).

We have got the required shuttering materials for one formwork of F1 type footing. Based on how many formworks you need for F1 type footing, multiply the shuttering materials we’ve got above with that number.

For example, you’ve 10 numbers of F1 type footing and you’ve decided to make 3 numbers of formwork for this type footing. So, required shuttering materials for 3 numbers of formwork for F1 type footings are,

• Wooden plank or plywood = 3 x 21 = 63 sft
• Wooden batten (3″x2″) = 3 x 42 = 126 rft
• Nail = 0.42 x 3 = 1.26 kg.

Similarly calculate the shuttering materials for all different types of footing for your building project and summarize them all.

conclusion
Estimating shuttering materials for footings is actually easy. You just need to decide how many formworks you’ll make for different types of footing. And then calculate wooden plank or plywood, wooden batten, and nail for all the formwork you required.