Footings, Day 2. Level and Rebar

Today was day 2 of the footings.  We needed to level them and get the rebar in and ready for inspection.  Here is the time-lapse video for the day;

I figured we would be able to get it done in just a few hours, so I booked the inspector to come during his next available slot, 2 days away.  They Dysert Concrete guys usually work in a bigger town near by and didn’t realize that my township only has one inspector and that he only inspects for 6 hours a week.  They assumed they could finish the rebar, call in the inspector and still pour the same day.  Fortunately, we talked about the plan at the start of the day.  Some quick phone calls were made to stop the concrete trucks and then they got to work unloading the rebar and other equipment from the truck. Doug Dysert didn’t make it out today (so I still haven’t been able to give him a check or see a bill).  Baudilio, who I worked with the most on Friday, returned, but with two new guys; Don, a more experienced (20 year) veteran and Chris, the younger guy (9 years experience, but only one week with Dysert) who got the less pleasant jobs.

Bau got to work on adding stakes around the footings while Don got to calculating the volume for the next days pour (I wasn’t surprised that his number was half a yard higher than my computer model predicted).  Chris, the new guy was unloading the truck.  I was just standing around without much to do.  So, I asked if I could use the motorized tamper.  It was kind of fun, as long as I didn’t try to back up.  I went around the “track” a few times until I felt like I was wasting time.

Talking to Doug on Friday and he mentioned that these motorized tampers are pretty expensive if you buy them new.  He said that the motors don’t last long, but the base lasts forever.  He always looks for an old one that doesn’t run, buys it cheap and then replaces the motor.  Good as new for less than half the price.

 

Then the more experienced guys got to work leveling the footings using a rotary laser level and a sensor on a measuring rod.  They set the rod on the top of the footing and the sensor beeps to indicate if it is higher or lower than the laser.  Fast beeping meant they footing was too high and needed to be lowered until they got a steady tone.  Slow beeping meant it was too low and needed to be raised.  Either way, they would screw the forms to the stakes at the correct height and continue on to the next section.

While they were doing that, Chris was cutting “rebar chairs”.  These keep the rebar at the right position in the concrete and out of the sand.  I “helped” by suggesting that he could probably cut thru more than one at a time.  I like to think I increased his productivity by 600% ;^)   Again, without much real work to do, I tried to keep myself busy by distributing the rebar chairs around the site.

After the forms were leveled, there were some gaps under them, particularly where they had been lifted up by several inches.  Again with nothing else to do, I got to work backfilling behind the forms with dirt so they concrete wouldn’t just leak out.  It turned out that I had not back-filled nearly enough and Chris went around behind me and did a lot more.

Meanwhile, the other two guys finished leveling and switched to bending and placing rebar.  They had brought a manual rebar bender/cutter, but never used it.  Instead they used a concrete saw with a 12 inch grinding wheel for cutting (caution, that rebar is still hot for a long time after). All the bending was done “freehand” as needed.  They did have a rebar tie gun that is supposed to make the job easier, and it probably did, when it wasn’t messing up, or running out of energy, and it sure used a lot of tie wire (several reels worth).  I looked up the specific gun they were using and it costs $3,385 to $3,865 depending on the specific model.

Warning to anyone who wants to come out and help me: I think I will tie the rebar in the walls and ceiling with manual rebar tie hooks that use the little pre-cut and looped pieces of tie wire.  I wonder if an 8 year old and a 10 year can handle that?

The #4 rebar is pretty easy to bend, but not very easy to “curve” into the right shape, especially once you mess up.  I tried a few curves and decided I was hurting more than helping, so I stuck to the straight pieces with the simple bends.

The experience with free hand curving rebar was enough to convince me that such an approach would not be acceptable when I am working on the rebar for the vaults.  I will look into getting the rebar “factory” curved, or else build some sort of jig out of stakes to try and come up with a more precise method.

 

Before heading out there, I had looked up the coordinates where the “concrete encased electrode” would be.  This is basically using the rebar in the footing as an additional grounding rod.  So I set that up, complete with the rebar grounding clamps.

Lastly, I helped position some tubes in the footings so that we will have bleed holes, holes for the radon pipes and an exit to the septic system later.

We were done in just over 4 hours.

Next up, inspection to check our work and then we can pour the concrete.