Commercial Site Visit: Form Removal & Column

          Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  That being said, the plywood forms have now been completely removed form the foundation walls and are stacked neatly on the side of the job site ready to be taken off site.  I was surprised how long it took to remove all the forms.  The concrete was poured on Friday and the forms were slowly removed over the course of five days starting Monday.  The forms on the interior of the foundation, that I originally suspected were not removed because a crane was needed to lift them out of the foundation, were removed manually.

Forms stacked on side of job site near site trailer/dumpster.

          A major step that was made after the forms were completely removed was the placing of the steel column base plates.  The base plates are bolted to J-Hooks which are embedded into the concrete.  The baseplate's can be adjusted up and down the four threaded J-Hooks using bolts.  It is important that these baseplate's can be adjusted because it is nearly impossible to ensure that the plates will remain level once the concrete is poured and cures.  I referenced the foundation drawings of the building and saw that the column base plates were 14"x14"x1" and made of steel.  The J-Hooks (Anchor Bolts) had a 4" threaded area to allow for adjustment.

As you can see the baseplate is not level and needs adjustment.  This photo

also shows the patchwork around the form ties, these ties will soon be cut.

Lastly the cutout on top of the foundation wall will be used as a brick ledge.