Plumbing pillars

[Mark]

Chris asked me what I do to keep pillars plumb and square - here are a couple shots I found of pillar work. The first 2 shots obviously are not "plumb" but the method is the same. Once the inner block work is up the guys cut a square piece of plywood to the dimension of the finished stone work and anchor it to the block work. The bottom of the plywood also represents the top of the stonework before installing a cap. From the plywood we simply run strings tied to screws at the corners of the ply and put tapcons in the footing and run the strings down to them. This gives you 4 perfect lines to build to and keep you plumb, square, or in line with whatever angle you want your stonework to represent.
The 3rd pic is a set of pillars I personally built and I went all by eye and 4 foot level. I am sure to get some crap comment from Greenmonster here about not believing I actually work......well I use to!!!

Another method of keeping plumb that I have seen guys use is to put a piece of rebar in the center of the pour for the pilllar footing and have a 90 degree bend in it that they can then drop a plumb bob from to represent the corners.....obviuously would need 4 pieces of rebar one for each corner. When a light is in a column and a conduit is coming up the center I have seen guys put a 90 degree sweep on the conduit unglued and then plumb down from that. Being unglued you can swing the sweep to keep checking your corners. This is not real stable but does work to keep tabs on yourself to an extent.
My personal preference is the plywood routine or just by eye
Hope this helps and makes sense

[CaptainsLS]

Thanks for that quick run through Mark. I’m using a wall stone to build pillars, running some pieces on face like you did in that last shot. We are using a similar shape stone (Corinthian), and I keep falling out of plumb. I have always worked by eye, but I’m going to give the plywood a go, I like that.


Oh yeah.... does that gate retract into the pillar?!?!?

[Mark]

yes it does

[CaptainsLS]

I think I may have just answered the question in my other PM by seeing those new pictures. Is that a southbay full veneer?

[CaptainsLS]

I cant say that I have ever seen a gate retract into pillars before. Thats pretty cool.

[Mark]

Yeah.....southbay quartzite. We had to use it because it matched what was already on the main estate. We bought a mix of the 3 different sizes they had available. Easy stone to work...we used a block splitter to make the corners when we started running low. Worked great!
Fun but also a pain to build the split pillar. The insides were all faced as well. The top we spanned with some steel to tie the two sides together and then capped the pillar as one unit instead of the two.

[booner]

That's tight wall work Mark, nice. I've only done one tapered pillar wall and I used a wooden stake near each end of the wall that I marked width vs height on. It was a pain to have to measure width after every one or two stones. I've always just checked each corner (on both sides of the corner) with a 4' for straight wall/pillar.

[Mark]

thanks booner

[CaptainsLS]

Getting a medium/large mix of stone is the way to go. We are working pillars that are 28” and on a real tight budget so I’m using all thin. It’s proving to be difficult to keep those ‘face’ pieces away from the corners. Each plane has only a span of 3 stones or so…

[Mark]

so where some pics???

[CaptainsLS]

er…. Give me bit, I’m only about 1 foot high on the thing. Between the rain and air moisture, working with mortar is like using slurry. What a mess. I wish the quarry would keep their mason sand under cover or in a barn.

[CaptainsLS]

Like I said, nothing interesting. But by the end, I'll be sure to post picts as well as advice on how to build a couple 'o driveway pillars for VERY short money.

[Mark]

what do you have for a footing?

[CaptainsLS]

30” deep of 5000psi concrete with horizontal and vertical #5’s. Dig is inverted so the bottom of the footer is about 50” across and the top is 30”. People look at our excavation and think there isn’t a footer. We like having a perfect pour.

[SCgreenscapes]

man. I would hate to be you guys with all these 3ft footers. you can lay up a house on 10" around here(SC & NC). That's a lot of labor and concrete cost on top of a typically expensive build already. Good work being legit and doing it the right way.

[cgland]

Capt'n why the inverted footer? What are the advantages/disadvantages?

[DanMan2k06]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's so that during freeze/thaw/heaving the footer naturally resists rising out of the ground because of it's shape? Almost like an upside down wedge.

[GDK]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's so that during freeze/thaw/heaving the footer naturally resists rising out of the ground because of it's shape? Almost like an upside down wedge.

That's actually the same thing I was thinking......It seems to work like the 'big foot' sonotube system

[cgland]

Isn't that why you put a footer in? That's why it's below frost line right? As you can tell I'm not the most knowledgeable in masonry applications.

[GDK]

My other guess was that it is inverted to allow planting around the base.....and by no means am i an expert in masonry apps either

[MuirView Design]

How's the little Toro Cart work out for you? Lookin good so far. Are you hand digging your inverted footers?

[CaptainsLS]

The only reason it’s like that is for aesthetics or plantings. I don’t want the footing to show at the surface.
I guess you could also use that type of footing to key into the soil like Dan said, but that’s not the point here. Just because you are below the frost line, doesn’t mean that your soils are stable so inverting it may help resist global movement.

[CaptainsLS]

How's the little Toro Cart work out for you? Lookin good so far. Are you hand digging your inverted footers?

Yeah, hand dig 'em:)

The Toro cart is hilarious. It's a 3-speed manual gas job with hydraulic dump. It can hold and dump around 900lbs.:car:

[swancreek]

Inverting the footings will also add mass to the bottom which in turn, makes the column more stable and resistant to leaning if it were run into.

[danf]

The Toro cart is hilarious. It's a 3-speed manual gas job with hydraulic dump. It can hold and dump around 900lbs.:car:
We used (and abused) a couple of those on the golf course at Purdue when it was getting built. I'd hate to guess how many tons of pea gravel those things hauled onto greens!

[GreenMonster]

I am sure to get some crap comment from Greenmonster here about not believing I actually work......well I use to!!!


I don't know Mark, you can be ghetto fab, but that fellow in the pics you lay claim to sure has a much darker complexion than you.