As you start building up from the foundations you are going to need to keep an eye on your levels. A floor that is two centimetres too high for example can mean a LOT of wasted material when that 2cm is translated across the whole house.
You are going to need a ‘story pole’ which you can mark your zero level on. We have our zero level as the height of the top of the floor tile. So that the bit you wall on when you are on the ground floor.
When measuring the height of the ground, put a straight pole in the ground somewhere out the way but close enough to the building that you can stretch your water level to all sides of the building. The pole is your story pole, and should be vertical.
A water level is a clear thin flexible plastic tube which you fill with water. Each end of the water will always level itself out so you can measure equal heights which are great distances apart.
In the photo above you can see me measuring the level of a step of a doorway. In the background is a concrete slab which we used to find out our zero level. Our zero level is about 20cm above this concrete slab as we have a few layers of material to make a heated floor. So on your story pole you can mark using the water level a notch or nail. We used a metre stick and added 1 metre to the 20cm so when I put the metre stick down on the walls I was looking for a height of 120cm as the floor height. It just makes it easier to work when you are not bending down to the ground so add a metre of its easy.
You can have your story pole as high as the building if possible. You will need it to level your windows and roof, and second floor if you have one.
FAZENDA TOMATI 