Steel and Concrete

I know there is little rhyme or reason as to the order in which I have posted photos. But, the last couple of days the subject of concrete and rebar has come up few times, so I figured I post some more photos of the concrete work that we did. I’ve elected to highlight the garage since it was the bigger of the two projects as far as concrete work.

After the helical piers were driven, pier caps were poured. Each cap is 1 foot thick. The larger pier caps are where double piers have been driven.

Rebar was placed on 1 foot centers and perimeter grade beams as well as interior grade beams were formed. The blue board is 2” of foam insulation placed onto the plastic vapor barrier. The vertical rebar is where the pillers that support the upper floor will be formed.

The 20' X 22' pad has been poured and again you can see the dowles where the pillers will be formed.

Three sides of the piller forms were built at Zach's shop. They were brought to the job site and placed around the pretied 5/8" rebar. The forth side of the form was put in place after the forms were in the proper location and the rebar was tied into the center of the forms. Note the tent we built over the project so that we could work in rainy weather.

2x4 stud walls were built on 16" centers to hold the plywood forms for the upper deck. Note the steel strapping around the vertical forms. This kept them from "blowing out" when the concrete was vibrated.

When you are going to pour a concrete floor that weighs over 70,000 pounds you better place lots of cross bracing.

The upper deck is formed and the first lawyer of rebar on 8" centers is sitting on top of plastic rebar shoes that keep it 2" off the form. Note the grade beams again around the outside and down the interior.

A typical corner where rebar not only ties into the pillers but ties the corner grade beams together.

In this photo you see Connie tying rebar. Connie, Zach and I all tied hundreds of pieces of rebar together. Zach tied the lions share with Connie and me tying in the evenings and on weekends.

I'm finishing tying the last of the rebar just prior to pouring. One side of the forms had to be left off so that we could push 22' long rebar through the grade beams to tie both the upper and lower layers of rebar into the grade beams and pillers. The upper layer of rebar is on 12" centers and the lower is on 8" centers.

A close up view of the 2 layers of rebar for the upepr deck of the garage.

A slightly out of focus look between the layers of rebar.

After the pour the tent came down and the forms were stripped. With the forms off we were pleased in the job we had done pouring over 45 yards of concrete for the garage. We were extra pleased at the finish and were told by the inspecting engineer that this was some of the best concrete work he had ever seen.