I'm doing some footing for a friend of mine, Bill. Bill's a patreon with us and he's been trying to get this building built for 3 years. While doing this project, Bill told me he was beyond excited to get this taken care of. We're going to be drilling the holes and then getting the forms set. Once that’s all done we can pour the footings and get the brackets in. This building is going to be 60 x 120 with 16 foot sidewalls. He’s going to use it to hold classic cars and six car lifts.
I've already marked out where my holes need to go. Then I just need to drill those and set the forms. When setting the forms, as long as I’m within a quarter inch of being level, I’m happy. The water line and electrical line was already put in so they have a trench and it happens to land right on 8 feet. If you're going to do that beforehand, you might want to try and figure out where it will land between the columns. I get my string line up to see where 8ft lands.
Before we could pour our concrete, we need to put in our dead-mans. Dead-mans are just the holes that we put some rebar in so we can put chains and straps too to hold our building in place. The entire pouring process probably takes about an hour and a half. I get my string lines ready and then we start marking out so we're ready to set all these brackets. You need to be ready to set the brackets because the concrete will start to dry really quickly. This JCB Teleskid and SkidPro Concrete Bucket make this so much easier. It is a much better alternative to trying to back these trucks in and around all these holes.
One little trick I've learned by doing this myself is using square batter boards. Then I just add a 2 x 4 and put a screw in to where it's an even number. Now I can just pull my 8 foot on centers from here. It's an easy way to be able to pull a tape by yourself. To put the brackets in I line my the mark I created up here on my string line with the line on the center of the bracket and then make sure I level. I set the bracket off my string about ⅛ to ¼ inch.
When you're pouring these footings you want to make sure you have everything ready to go when the concrete trucks get there. The concrete bucket and skid steer are life changers for me. It really makes things easy not having to get that concrete truck in and around all these holes. I made some modifications to my bucket that really have helped even more. One thing I did was weld this plate on to the front of my concrete bucket so that I can fill this thing all the way and then I can tip the bucket enough that I can see the front of the Chute from inside the cab. I also switched my hoses to the other side because I have a JCB and their hydraulics are on the right which is not typical. Lastly we beefed up this bottom plate here and added some little pin supports so that when I put the FS on there I can hook it on and I can squeeze that tight. That way I can really shake this bucket and it doesn't flop around.
Thank you,
MR Post Frame
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