Finalizing everything before digging and cementing

I had a buddy who used to be in construction come by and help me plan. He brought up some good points I didn’t think of.

1. The trees next to the sauna. They look fine now, but in a storm, they’ll be swinging. How close is too close to the roof? So I ended up removing 2 trees.
2. What’s the sauna gonna look like as you drive up the drive way? will you be staring at a big wall of a shed or something more visually appealing?

He suggested we get some lumber and frame up a square of the actual size of the sauna. That way, unlike the string, it’ll have some dimension. This actually worked out great as we moved it and turned it a few times until we came up with something that looked good from all sides and fit all the above criteria. Also, it gave us a better idea of the steps and where they’ll need to go to reach the sauna door in relation to the asphalt driveway. String didn’t do that so well.

Once we decided on the position of the building, we went and marked 9 spots where we will drill the holes for piers. They will be 48 inches deep (6 inches of pea gravel for drainage and 42 inches of concrete). Since we’re in MN, we need to go below the frost line. Also, Quickrete tubes suggest a 6” base of pea gravel below the tubes for drainage. The 9 spots for piers were marked off at 12” from each side of the building. That way the piers will sit under the building and not stick out of the sides. The middle row of the piers was marked just half way between the 2 outters which still satisfies the max 6 foot separation. The spots were marked both with spray paint and marker flags (just in case). I found out they sell the flags at the Home Depot. I think it’s like 100 flags for $8 :)

Next, we will be drilling the holes.

Cleared the area and staked out the approximate dimensions.

Cleared building area a little more.

Constructed a true size rectangle of the building.

Once the position was finalized, marked off the locations for concrete piers.