Piers? Varying questions I need help with.

[RayD]

I had my steel pier made and more than happy with that decision.  If it is a good quality one you are unlikely to save much money, but you do then get exactly what you want without any compromises.

[Alan White]

Thank you all, very much what I thought folks would say.

I have calmed myself and will cast the block over the weekend.
Then I have the nice challenge of pier shopping.

The plan to move is I hope longer than a couple of years as it means the daughters moving on and the dear old Father In Law not being in his annexe anymore.
None of those are moves I encourage.

But being able to move the pier to a new location and observatory in time would be good.
That's a retirement job probably though and few years off yet still.

[JamesF]

You could cast the block and then drill holes to fix the pier bolts using resin anchors.  That should work fine, but drilling holes of a suitable size may be quite laborious.  However you may prefer to wait until you have the pier on hand, to allow you to set bolts directly into the concrete using a template taken from the pier.

James

[Saganite]

4 minutes ago, JamesF said:

You could cast the block and then drill holes to fix the pier bolts using resin anchors.  That should work fine, but drilling holes of a suitable size may be quite laborious.  However you may prefer to wait until you have the pier on hand, to allow you to set bolts directly into the concrete using a template taken from the pier.

James

That is exactly the way I did mine, with 16mm resin anchors.

[Skipper Billy]

10 minutes ago, Saganite said:

That is exactly the way I did mine, with 16mm resin anchors.

Me too.

Drilling the holes took less than 30 mins with a decent 20mm masonry bit and an SDS drill. Mine is anchored down with 14mm studs into 20mm holes so there was plenty of room for the construction epoxy.

[Saganite]

I have a very heavy duty low voltage hammer drill with which I could tear up roads if I wished, and as you say , simple to drill 20mm holes .

[Alan White]

I have a handful of decent SDS drills, so drilling and resin was the plan.
But thanks for the thoughts and responses all.
I keep hovering my finger over the buy it button at the minute, it's like Christmas.