Standard reinforced details

Hi I don't know if anyone out there can help, I am currently undertaking a reinforced beam for my foundation. The beams have been prefabricated and supplied and I am about to place them in the trenches, I understand about cover and the amount of lap that is required when tying them together but I am a little unsure on jointing into corners (for which loose bars have been provided) and also the piles which have been prepared. If anyone could point me in the direction of standard details so I could make sense of my engineers drawing (who is now away on holiday) I would appriciate it

It's fairly standard to get the straight runs pre-fabricated to just drop into the trenches, but it is the corners that are a bit more complicated. If you've got an RC schedule and drawing after a few hours of studying you should be able to make some sense of it! Basic lap lengths should be given, but are a multiple of bar diameter so some googling should give you a result. Hopefully the corner bars have been provided bent to their required shape to make your life easier. It's a bit worrying that you are dealing with an RC spec when, no insult intended, you don't seem to know what you're doing with rebar. You should have enough right-angle bends to provide continuity/lap and some links to tie it all together. I presume you're doing a raft of some description?

Can't you get an experienced subby in to deal with that aspect of it? Every now and again I have to check RC drawings/schedules and I hope that whoever is receiving them is savvy on it because from a non-expert viewpoint it's just basically scary!

Like said above if you dont understand the RC drawings then get someone in who can read them.. any half decent steel fixer can sort out the corners and maybe give you some pointers for your next RC job..