Our Lansdscape subcontractor, Cleanscapes, has finished the pouring of the four final piers for our 4,000 square foot deck project at Republic Square. All told, it took three weeks of work (using very careful approaches) to dig, prepare and pour 22 footings.
The interior 12 footings are 3 foot by 3 foot by 3 foot holes with a 3 foot by 3 foot by 1 foot square of concrete footing and a 2 to 3 foot 12 or 16 inch diameter tube extending up from the footing. the 10 perimeter footings are 4 by 4 x 2 feet high footings. All soil for the footings was excavated by airspade (done by Bartlett Tree Experts) and then pulled out with shovels and trowels by Cleanscapes crews by hand.)
We encountered extensive tree roots and had to move some of the footings, but where we didn’t we wrapped them with burlap and kept them moist through out the process. Where a root had to be dealt with as part of the footing, we used flexible tubing filled with 2 to 4 inches of soil to encapsulate the root and allow it to grow while not impacting the footing. An example of one of the final footings poured today is the picture shown below – you can see the root running inside the cage – its in a pipe with soil and then wrapped in burlap for good measure.
We’ve had great help from our designers at TBG Partners, our structural engineers at Structures, Inc. and our construction partners at Spaw-Maxwell, Cleanscapes and Bartlett Tree Experts.
The good news we’ll now start on forming the perimeter concrete beams (above grade) and that effort should go much quicker. I hope.
