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Form Footing - Soil Manicuring
Ensure the soil surface at the bottom of the footings is smooth flat
and clean.
Manicure footing trench soil
This is pretty much the final opportunity to make sure the earth along the footing area is the right height with no high or low spots.
You need to check there are no soil high points and certainly no sharp high points. If there are indents where rocks were removed then fill them with either bag mixed concrete or if you have soil that sets like concrete (like I do) then you can use some filtered non-organic soil. Adding some type-S mortar powder to some filtered less good non-organic soil also works well.
Even though it should have previously been done, it is worth checking the soil at the bottom of the footings is properly compacted. If you have been careful not to over excavate and if you are lucky with the soil type then it may not be necessary to use a compactor on the soil. It wants to be 95% or better relative compaction and it is possible to have it tested if you are unsure about how compacted it is.
