I laid out string lines to dig the footers using the Pythagorean theorem; in the trades it's called the 3-4-5 method. At any rate that gets me square - you could use a transit to shoot your lines but this such a small job that it doesn't justify the trouble. The same holds true for batter boards, because of the small nature of the project I know exactly where my intersecting walls are going to be. When placing the concrete, I use the leveled lines as reference for footer height, since my mix is in small batches and pretty stiff it won't self level like it would if I poured the footers all at once with a high slump concrete.
This is a standard 1-2-3 mix with a slump of less than 2 inches, so it is important that I have a reference line to keep the footer level and at the same height throughout. I will use the same lines to lay the corner blocks, then switch to line blocks for the course blocks.
I can tell you one thing - this getting old stuff is for the birds. I am lucky if I can get a quarter yard of concrete mixed up and laid in a day - of course I have a lot of distractions that keep me from doing too much.
I got a new wheel barrow, it's the 3 cubic foot size, I haven't seen a 6 cu. ft. one in all of Ecuador. Once I figure out how to operate it I may have a story to tell. Oh yeah - $52. You may see some 3 liter bottles laying around in some of the pictures, they are the perfect size for water in mixing cement, exactly the amount of water needed for one cubic foot of concrete or mortar.
Until next time,
Happy Trails.
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