vertical rebar and dowels
 

vertical rebar and dowels
can vertical rebar extend into the footing to serve also as dowels, thus, eliminating one step in the fabrication process? why or why not?
would this force too high of a load "into" the near bottom of the footing, as opposed to being distributed more onto the top of the footing?
thank you!
this is done quite often. really, the only reason for the dowels is construction effeciency so that vertical bars can be spliced. standing a 8' or longer bar in a footing is not that easy and if you are using block on the footing, the mason would have "thread" the block over the bar. dowels are just quicker.
a correctly spliced bar carries the same load.