It appears youve forgotten to put a gate in to allow easy access to your neighbours pool.

haha - our pool is better than theirs;)

btw, does anyone know what the difference is between "concrete sand" and "brickies sand" (apart from the obvious)?  Is it cool to just use brickies sand for the concrete mix?  I was just reading up on the Cockburn Cement site and they reckon to only use "concrete sand" for mixing footings? 

I was planning to order brickies sand and use it for both the footings and the brick work...

i think the difference is clay content

plaster sand has low clay

brickies sand has higher clay

up north on our batching plant we used riversand

cant help you with the concrete v's brickies sand, didnt know there was such thing as concrete sand.

one comment, I would relocate the brick sitting under the pier rods.  better to have the area around the base of the rod fully surrounded by concrete.

is you neighbour on holidays and about to get a nice surprise when they return?

Cheers

PG

okay - i think i'll just stick with using brickies sand.

PG - will do on the bricks.  Any suggestions on what to use instead?

Nope - they've actually just sold the house so the new neighbours move in on the 28th... so I've got from now until then to get it all sorted:)

can pick them up from farinosi mitre 10 in northbridge. they come in a variety of heights to suit all applications. i like the plastic ones.

just do google image search "reinforcement bar chairs" and you will see them.

they are the paperclip of the building industry. you just look at them and wonder why didnt i think of that.!

if you cant get to a store tomorrow that sells them maybe make something up from metal clothes hangers. 

Best of luck with it.

PG

 all looks good wayne,exept your pegs should be on the outside of form work,to strip when concrette is set,bricks wont make a difference,because you have plenty of cover from concrette,also before you pour your footing wet the fibre cement form work sheets to not stick and get a better finish

cheers fellas - will look into those bar chairs...

will do joe:)  what do you guys usually use for form work?  i've seen some of it around on other sites... some type of black board?

to which you refer is called formply.  I don't know whether you still plan to mix your own concrete but the following is a mix for residential driveway concrete which would also be suitable for footings.  Quantities are for 1m3.

Cement     320kg

Sand         0.5m3

20mm aggregate   1.0m3

Water        220-230 litres 

As far as sand goes I would favour clean sand over brickies sand which as had been said before I think contains some clay material.

Foundations look good, but would use Washed sand for the concrete.........brickies sand is fatty(clay content) and washed sand is used as the fine course aggregate in concrete. You will get a stronger mix with washed sand.

Agree with Joe that pegs should be placed on the outside to avoid blow out ......seems this may not be a major issue as the AC sheets are up against sand.

For what it's worth...If you are trying to keep all of this on your side of the boundary?????????I would drive pegs behind the AC to avoid encroaching......your new neighbours may not be as amicable as the current ones.....hope this isn't the case as they should appreciate a permanant fence that will not need any replacing for a long time.

Good luck.

Cheers

ings.  as a rule of thunb there are normally 12-14 barrows of concrete per cubic meter..  (ie full barrows)  thats a lot of mixing by hand ordering from the concrete companies would be the way to go...  no mess and less physical work.  footing poured in an hour sitting back looking and having a beer.. Mix by hand and you'll be at it most of the day..

Without knowing how high your wall is going and how heavy it would be, I would suggest doubling the reo and make a cage of two layers, then chair it up on pie plates, put your formwork pegs on the outside, drill some reo starter bars into existing footing and reo the stepped footing. Then get a concrete truck in, dont mix yourself

Thanks for the replies fellas.  i know it sounds crazy but yeah, we'll be mixing it ourselves.  At 1.875m3 it going to be approx 30 wheel barrows of mix.  With only having wheel barrow access and just me and my old man available, then i figured we'll just do it ourselves rather than getting a truck and pump in.  Hence today i picked up 24 bags of concrete, 2m3 of sand and 2m3 of blue metal.

fathom - the footings are 250 x 500.  Is doubling up on the reo not overkill?  the wall is approx. 2200 on our side, and 1800 on their side with every double-sided pier being at 2.4m apart.

Can you expand on what you mean by "drill some reo starter bars into existing footing and reo the stepped footing"?  At the moment I have rio laid out in the stepped footing section...is this not enough?

cheers

Wayne
 

PS - I was going to water proof the neighbours side of the wall - can anyone recommend a good product for this?  Also is it worth putting in weep holes or something similar on our side of the wall?

 you got more than enough reo,for that type of wall wayne,like i said to you the other day,that footing should be more than enough for that boundry/retainer wall wall and for waterproofing the wall i would use straight damp course on the garden wall

are you busy next week???

my wife wants me to go fishing and you to do the wall as it's a lot better than the one I last did...lol

nice strong base you got there. Instead of bricks, you can use plastic coat hangers if you can't get Reo-bar steps

cheers

If your wall is 34 metes long you may wish to put contol joints in it at 8 metre spacings.

This may help also

http://www.midlandbrick.com.au/autocad/default.asp?site=midland&company=Midland&AUD=&nodes=&toggleItem=&menuitem=&category=Wall Type 1&El_name=Retaining Wall Details