concrete recipes and preventing cracks.

[jt7157]

As usual with tractorbynet, I get a wealth of information in a short time. Thanks so much for everyone's advice and help. Many of the ideas you all have provided will be used. I just cannot thank you all enough.

 

[EdC]

Great project Dargo. I have problems even thinking about 18,000 yds of dirt, gives me a headache. Oh by the way I'll give you one of my "round toits" if you really needs one.

 

[AlanB]

You don't need the chairs or holders. What you do is buy 12-18" 1/2" rebar pins. You hammer them into the ground level with your outside forms at 2' spacing (or the same spacing as your re-bar) and the line on your foundation wall. You buy a $5 dollar tool called a "twist tie tool" and a bag of 100 6" twist ties. You then use the twist tie tool to spin the wire around the vertical pin and your rods. Hold the rebar half way up your pour off the stone (~2"). The small chairs suck because when you dump loads of 'crete, they just blow over and everything gets all screwed up. The pins are nice because they also serve as level locators for the top of your concrete. After you screed, you just tap them down an inch with a hammer so the rebar doesn't go down too far and they disappear.

Thing ya gotta remember is there's more than one way to do it, just do it one of the "right" ways and you'll be OK.

Somewhere I had read / heard or imagined someone saying not to put the rebar (the pins in this case) down into the dirt as it gave a place to start rusting up into the concrete. Does that concern you at all?

 

[koop]

Somewhere I had read / heard or imagined someone saying not to put the rebar (the pins in this case) down into the dirt as it gave a place to start rusting up into the concrete. Does that concern you at all?

You are absolutely correct. Steel should ideally be encased with 2" of concrete. Exposed steel does rust. Rusting steel expands and cracks concrete. There is coated rebar which can be safely driven into the ground.