Foundation bolt layout got me good in Portland, lesson learned
Last month I was setting anchor bolts for a small deck addition in Portland and I trusted my tape marks instead of snapping a fresh line. Pour day came, the crew set the bolts, and when the mud cured I checked with a string line. Three of the six bolts were off by a half inch, too far for the Simpson brackets we planned to use. I had to chip out the concrete around those bolts, drill new holes, and epoxy everything over. Took me a full afternoon and about $60 in epoxy and rebar pins to fix. My takeaway is simple: always double check your layout against a reference line before the concrete shows up. Anyone else had to fix anchor bolt placement after a pour, and what did you do to keep it straight?
A half inch off on three bolts is rough, that string line never lies. Chipping cured concrete and epoxying new pins sounds like a long afternoon, but at least it was only a deck and not a whole house foundation. Snapping a fresh chalk line right before the pour is cheap insurance compared to that kind of rework.