3.Column Reinforcement

After stripping the formwork the starter bars are then connected to the reinforcement bars for the column. High tensile bars are used with links 100mm c/c were placed into the reinforcement system as showed in the pictures.

Due to lack of equipments we had to bend the links by a fulcrum system and a lot of elbow grease.

The rebars are tapered at the tip and tied with temporary wires to prevent swaying by the wind. Column rebars are also allowed to extrude slightly above the finished level so that it could be merged with the reinforcement in the beams later.
 

Complete

Links

2.Laying the Footing

Before we could start making the pad footing, the students had to excavate about 200mm below the floor level and insert the reinforcement cage + formwork.

After leveling the excavated ground and placing some hardcore ( 1 sd : 1 rough agg) the formwork for the pad footing is placed into the pit and leveled using a spirit level.

The reinforcement cage is elevated above the floor using spacers made from broken cement sand bricks to elevate the cage above ground level.

The column starter bars are then tied to the cage using wires. After setting the rebars in place we then could start concreting the pad footing with a mixture of  1cement: 2 sand: 2 coarse aggregates with a w/c ratio of 0.6 to enhance workability. The concrete is then compacted to increase its strength using metal rods.

1.The saga begins

Hi .This is my first attempt at blogging so please leave comments . The reason why I have created this blog is because there wasn’t enough info on the net regarding simple construction projects to help students and educators in their practical work. I hope that this could more or less help people out there looking for info and accidentally stumble upon my blog. Hope to hear from y’all soon and God Bless.




Remember knowledge without practice is like a tree that bears no fruit........