Timber Portal Frame - but stick built

As some of them are "out" by a few cm, i probably will stick to @Russell griffiths advice and widen the RC beam to 500mm . He suggested that 400mm might be a bit tight to get it all straight and you def. don t want the first course of Blocks laid and realise that it s getting very close to the RC beam corners or even sticking out by a few mm.

500mm would give just that bit of extra space to work the Block plinths wall .

Now with some of the piles out of the centre line by 5-10cm , the 500mm Rc beam will make sure that all of them sit comfortably within the Ring Beam.

At least thats the theory .

We will see - next is tying the cages

I ordered this :

 

 

and a few boxes of this:

 

 

so should be 

 

This is my dumb question of the day. Why do the cages, steelwork etc, have to be tied together with bits of wire, when they are all going to be encased in concrete ? Would plastic cable ties not do the same job ? There you go, told you it was a dumb question.

@Big Jimbo

dont worry, I have dumb questions by the ton, I just spread them out across different forums and friends and family, so it gets picked up less.

 

It s been written elsewhere , but yes, apparently cable ties are just as good as wire.

Options to make cages are (to my knowledge_)

-Wire

-Dot Welding

-Cable ties

 

With these 3 options, wires are probably the cheapest and quickest .

Dont think you can get cable ties cheaper than a few 100m of wire and pliers. And fiddling the cable ties together not going to be quicker than wires either.

 

Many people also buy the pre made cages from Steel Stockholders .

Probably cheaper that way if you ordering rebar anyways and take the time into consideration. Someone needs to tie the bars together (i get my rebar cheaper than any stockholders would be able to- so even with the exta work, still worth it_ )