I am on my way to go pour concrete footers. My cars thermometer says it is 104 degrees out. This is really gonna suck.

I don't even want to sit on my deck in this weather. It'd probably just fall down or explode into flames anyway since we don't have housing inspectors here.

so, yeah... moving wheelbarrows of concrete 30 yards from the driveway to the back of the house in 103 (actual) degree weather is a LOT of fun.

I don't know how I manage to do it, but I always seem to end up doing outside chores on the hottest days of the summer.

anyway.... I survived.

Here's the footers:

What did you use to get all the tops at the same height?

Be honest, jim.

There are hobos buried under there.

Don't know how Jim did it, but a water level will do the job.

Could also use a surveyor's transit.

Oh come on ,
String line with a level

The tops are not at the same height. the mook that was hired to do the holes just bulled through it. truck is here, gotta pour it...

its ok... i'll make the legs the proper length to level the deck. and i'll hide those tubes in boxes.

That's what I thought, based on the picture.

The holes, the empty holes, the filled holes...

then you jam the form down into the concrete? and then top them off.

That's what the mason did.... In retrospect, I'm thinking that maybe it would have been better to put the tubes in cut to be flush with ground level.... back-fill with dirt, fill to level with the ground. I'm kind of bummed that I didn't slow him down and tell him what we were doing. I was warned that he was a bit of a blunderer, but this seemed such a basic job, that we figured he couldn't fuck it up. Plus, it literally WAS so fucking hot that all I could really spend my attention on was laying out the location of the bolts I'm putting in the exact spot...which i have no confidence of at this point... and how could there possibly have been this much sweat in my body? Forreals though... I really wish it had been nicer and less rushed by the huge ass concrete truck idling in the driveway while we carted loads back, and how fast it set up. It will serve, but elegant it is not. I'm going to have to cover that shit up.

Anyway... I'm reserving judgement until I can see what I've got after the deck is up.

and enough about the footers....

We ended up having to chop one of those pillars off, because it was just too far out of line.

Here's the header.... It's the suckiest part of the job, because someone has to go into the crawl space and tighten the bolts up. That someone was not me.

We're using Cedar on the outside(visible) portions, but treated innards to save $$.

Here, we have to span 18', so I used two boards of each kind, and offset the joint. The cedar in back is a 2x12, the treated wood is a 2x10. I counter sunk the bolt heads so that they don't interfere with the joists that will hang inside there.