Another questiion about pier's

[youngins]

Generally, do concrete piers sticking up out of the ground need to be exactly level with each other?

Since you can adjust the height of the PT posts to get the beams level, I would think the top of the piers would just have to be "close enough for government work"?

[glenn-k]

or at least good enough for the girls I go with. :-/

[peg_688]

Your right. No real pressing need for the saddles to be level to one another.

[highlight]I line , yes. [/highlight] And properly layed out (so beam ends are close to centered over the saddle ) and spaced so as to not over span the distance between post for the size beam your using.
 
When you set your saddles pick the side that is most seen (easy to eye ball down for people ) and make that  sight line side is  the open side of the saddle . This makes it easier to "tweak" that sight line when you get to the post  at installation phase. You can set the end two post and pull a dry line down the row, tweaking the inner post using that open side of the saddle to your advantage.


About  the only time height / level is important would be a very visual line of saddles  that say held posts to a arbor / trellis that had a side walk , retaining wall , other visual guide point that folks could view / see down. But under a deck or cabin / house that's why you can cut the post to fit

There are MTL other variants to this , but I think / hope you get the idea.

G/L PEG    

[peg_688]

or at least good enough for the girls I go with. :-/

Can't see it from my house!

We'll do it right the next time !

We're not building a  piano!

Close enough is good enought!

MTL more ole sayings , Eh!

[glenn-k]

We're not building the Taj Mahal here.

[glenn-k]

James F Lincoln of Lincoln Electric fame once said something to the effect that a weld only needed to be good enough to do the job it was intended to do.  In other words making a high precision, highly technical special procedure weld to hold a mail box post to a base was wasteful of time and money.  That can be applied to nearly anything.

If you want something to be really nice for show or required special strength etc. is one thing.  If you are pouring a footing that is going to be covered later anyway then it only needs to be smooth enough for the wall forms to set level -- using one of my projects as an example.

[peg_688]

We're not building the Taj Mahal here.

Speaking of marble dome buildings did you know :

The Rhode Island State House is made up of 327,000 cubic feet (9200 m³) of white Georgia marble, 15 million bricks, and 1,309 tons (1187 tonnes) of iron floor beams.

The dome of the State House [highlight]is the fourth-largest self-supporting dome in the world[/highlight], after St. Peter's Basilica, the Minnesota State Capitol, and the Taj Mahal.[highlight] It is the second-largest self-supporting marble dome[/highlight]   :oin the world, only after St. Peter's Basilica



Other notables :

 One of the first public buildings to use electricity,

one of the first public buildings in the United States to use skylights

 


Edited to add sorry for the thread drift . And what can I say I'm a native New Englander and that is one of our little known facts Rhode Islander secrets.

[youngins]

sorry for the thread drift

I actually like reading you little factoids....

[glenn-k]

Then add this to that -- my old explorations.

A first in electrical power

In 1893 the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant, located approximately 13 miles away on Green Creek, above Bridgeport, California. The plant developed a maximum of 130 horsepower and 6,600 volts alternating current to power the company's 20-stamp mill. This pioneering installation is marked as one of the first transmissions of electricity over long-distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodie,_California

They were concerned that electricity couldn't make turns in the power lines so the pole line runs diectly from the dam to the power house at Bodie -- or so the story goes.

[Sassy]

I work with a police officer at the hospital who wrote the book Bad Man From Bodie:  The Life & Violent Death of John Franklin Showers, by MSgt (Ret) Joseph P Bowman.  John F. Showers was his uncle.  An interesting bit of history that ranges from Santa Clara County to Bodie, California.  

Don't know if you can find it on Amazon... yes, you can The Bad Man  From Bodie