What's so hard about a grade beam?
Post date: Jan 22, 2015 9:1:27 PM
Yeaaaa! I know you are thinking on this dismal day that you wanted to look at more pictures of rebar. Well, I always try to oblige.
Let's start, shall we?
To begin, lets look at a proper grade beam corner. In addition to the straight bars, there are bent L-shaped bars that tie the straight bars together. You can see them like flyovers in an interchange.
This contractor did it right, even in a weird corner with 3 beams converging.
This contractor did not.
You can see that the straight bars don't even overlap. And there are no corner bars. Just FYI, there are corner bars in some of the other corners, so he knows that they should be there. He was just hoping I wouldn't notice. I noticed. That foundation observation failed and the contractor calls me back after a few workdays and tells me he's corrected everything.
At this point, the contractor is costing the client money as this site visit is extra.
Well, in one location, the contractor had executed an acceptable fix. He's made a 45degree angle on the formwork to allow some bars that lap with the grade beam coming in from the top and wrap around to the grade beam on the right.
I'm not excited about this fix, but at least the grade beam is mostly continuous. However, on the other location where there weren't corner bars?
You guessed it.
Why would he have 'fixed' one corner and not the other? Because he hoped I wouldn't notice. I noticed. Failed again.
So, what's the point of this? Anyone could see that the last picture is wrong. Actually, the point is that it can be that easy. Sometimes, the problem is so small, an observer might not catch it, like last newsletter. Sometimes, I can see it from 10feet away.
To summarize, entertaining pictures of rebar? check. Outlier providing 5 minutes of continuing ed on a Thursday? check. See you soon!