stepped footings

[onionizer]

Hi,
Can anyone offer any advice on how to do stepped footings? We have our trenches dug to the right depth and are gonna construct some formwork where necessary. But our conundrum is how to stop the concrete from just flowing downhill and therefore overflowing at the lowest point. do we need to order thick mix. By the time we reach the top we have risen by 3 mteres..
or do we have to pour the individual steps separately? and wait for them to go off?
Cheers

[silentC]

If the concrete runs out the bottom it's too wet - send it back!

No expert on it, but I guess our strip footings varied in height by about the same amount as yours and we poured them all on the same day. The combination of the stiffness of the mix plus the reo should hold it up. Well, it did on ours, anyway.

[bitingmidge]

Oh dear!

3 metres is a lot of metres!

Concrete isn't that fluid, if your formwork is strong enough you'll be OK, although if you are really concerned you can order stuff with a lower slump.

DON'T add water!


Cheers,

P

[onionizer]

Thanks
I'm no expert on it too.. So you had steps too.. did you just put a block at the start of each rise to create the vertical face of the step?
cheers

[silentC]

For the 1 or 2 course steps, we just had height pegs and finished the face with the trowel. For the big drops, a bit of form ply against a couple of stakes either side of the trench for the face. You can get fancy and box it in but ours was mostly contained on the sides by the trench. None of ours is visible (or the few bits that are visible now wont be for long) so we didn't bother getting fussy with it.