We continued the work of setting the legs to be in their absolutely correct positions and bolting them down.
We are using a special bolts which ‘self tap’ into concrete, see below
Concrete-bolts
The ones we are using are 12mm in diameter and 90mm long. We use a masonry SDS drill with a 10mm drill bit to bore down into the concrete and then blast out the rubbish using compressed air.
Drilling-a-bolt-hole
We started at the Great Room end at Leg 7, doing the holes etc. and then sliding thin metal strips under the edge of the foot plate as needed to adjust the leg to be straight up and then tightened down the four bolts to lock down that leg.
Leg-one-bolted-down
We then continued onto leg 1 and did the same set of tasks there, and then proceeded to leg 2 and leg 6. We measured the direct distances between the legs in all directions plus also the two diagonals to make sure the whole structure is at right angles and following a straight line (as we got very long I beams crossing along the top of these legs). We didn’t have to do very much adjustment to the absolute position which was rather rewarding for us and reflects on our effort last week when we first installed the legs.
So leg 2 and leg 6 were similarly bolted down and adjusted for verticality and we then moved to the final pair of legs, number 3 and number 5. We did our distance checking again and with a bit more adjustment this time (but only approximately 15mm movement) we got these two legs into position too. It was now getting dark and we got leg 5 all bolted down and balanced with the leg set vertical but we couldn’t finish leg 3 as it was too dark to see the bubble on the spirit level and also there was a slight odd situation where this leg is not very vertical and is leaning a little too far towards the garage end of the house. the bottom distance is correct at 3714mm apart and we know the previous leg (number 2) is vertical but something is wrong. We will check the temporary horizontal wooden strut between the legs at the top to see if it is the same distance and try to find the answer .. but tomorrow in the daylight after lunch – grin!
So in conclusion, we managed to bolt down all six legs and check five of them to be proudly standing upright, just the final leg to finish off and then we will be ready to start lifting the huge steel I beams on top of them!!!!