Hi, new subscriber here. I'm a tile setter but I've poured concrete many times, mainly for myself and family. I would say it's best to cover up a little more. I would have run two inch masking tape on the painted wall about 1/2 inches above the concrete surface and cover your A/C unit with plastic. It might not have been a big deal at your house but other people might have a fit if you splash concrete on their things. I think you did a great job, especially working alone. I know this is hard work.
That's a Kushlan 600DD mixer. I have one and mixed and poured a couple of retaining walls and footers a little over a week ago using one. Almost 200 80# sacks. I love that mixer. I like what you did. You got it done, and the finish looks good. Finishing the concrete is the hardest part to get right. My only "complaint" is: why didn't you support the rebar off the bottom? That's only going to help if the edges lift, putting the bottom in tension. At the bottom, it won't help if the edges drop or the center rises (expansive soils). They make chairs for rebar to support it off the bottom. It should be in the center, vertically, to have the most benefit for either rising or lowering events (again, expansive soils, and also uneven loading, etc). Concrete is great for compressive strength but has very poor tensile strength. The rebar is there mostly to provide tensile strength. Not busting on you, just hoping to help.
Approximately how long did that mixing / pour / finishing take? your project looks approx as large as mine with similar requirements .... i'm trying to figure out how doable it is for my wife and I to get done in a day . Also I noticed you didnt put any control joints in the slab. I would have expected from the size to have ~ 1 put into it.... or is it not required for some other info I am not aware of ( ? ) nice job also ....
Besides framing everything up and the set up. The actual pour was from 7am to about 12 or 1pm. It was about 2 hours of hard work. (Mixing and getting it into place) And then the rest is babysitting and waiting for it to dry. But depending on the temperature/ humidity /sun / shade and your mix the drying time can grately vary. I would plan on at least a half day of work if you are not in a hurry.
Oo and the control joints are just incase it cracks. This will be under a floor so I was not really worried about it. If it were exposed or a bigger slab I would prob add some.
Always buy a few bags of portland cement. That way you can add to a rocky mix. Nothing wrong with a rocky mix I actually prefer a rocky mix. I have noticed that the sakrete bags usually have more gravel and the ready mix tend to be more sand atleast here in commiefornia. When I have bought the ready mix which is what is mostly available here i have to add gravel.
Is faster and easier on my back mixing in a wheel barrel and a hoe one bag at a time, after a few tries with the mixer I sold it and use the wheel barrel and a hoe
@@garyh4458 I’ve done over 40 yards of concrete so far and still at it, my back yard is big, I would say that maybe 3 yards were done with the mixer and the rest with the hoe and wheelbarrow, I mix one bag at a time inside where the pad, it takes less than a minute to mix, I tried more bags but is more work to mix and too heavy to dump, with the mixer the concrete sometimes would stick to the wall and I had to scrape it so it was taking longer
@@garyh4458 more than 2000 bags, they give you discount if they are ripped, sometimes free depending on the cashier or manager I bought them mostly 75% off from home depot, there's 3 stores near my house
@@cornflakeusa it might be, but I got at least 300 bags of free concrete mixed, it all depends on the cashiers and the manager at Home Depot, most I paid at 70% off also got some porland cement at a discount or free and would add some to the concrete mix
Talkin' 'bout "don't use a hose." Talkin' 'bout do it right......as you proceed to mix and pour concrete you know to be bad. Talkin' 'bout "I hope it doesn't screw me." SMDH!!
Definitely worse than optimal, but are these bags bad in the sense they are unuable? It is my understanding cement is normally 1 part out of 6 and it just needs to be close so some premature setting should be acceptable. To my untrained eye it did not look like a significant amount of premature setting in the bags. At most I assume throwing in a little extra cement into the mix remedy the situation. Does this seem reasonable or am I missing something?
@@georgebush6002 As a bag of concrete sits, it soaks up moisture out of the atmosphere. That's why it's optimal to use bags of premix no more than 30 to 60 days old. From there, they decay rapidly with regard to the quality of the final product you will get when you use them. I've seen old bags get mixed and you can crumble the final product in your hands. The cement is the glue and the premixed concrete needs to be used before that glue has had a chance to soak up too much moisture out of the air....otherwise you end up with cement that, although still likes dust, those particles have actually slightly started to clump and cure and then it won't make a glue when you add water and mix. Add more cement? Sure, I guess but.....now you have partially cured particles/clumps of preexisting cement in you mix which now becomes an additional aggregate in the concrete. An aggregate that won't perform like the rocks. All in all.....don't use old bags of premix. If you do and you add cement you're probably ok as long as your not pouring airport taxiways and runways LOL Seriously though.....if you're pouring something that you're going to have any weight on, I don't think I'd tend to be trustful of a mix where cement was added to a way out-of-date premix. I've simply seen more than once how weak old premix can be.
@@SomeDumUsrName I was re-watching the video, and based on his reaction at 4:36 I would definitely say the bags are unusable without cement. I was previously unsure if a significant amount of the cement had been locked up during the formation of the chunks, but if it was noticeable during the mix it should qualify as significant. My fault for not watching the whole video before commenting. Well here's to hoping the cement he had left was up to the task.
@@DEISWY I actually think you did a pretty good job but you made it a bit difficult for yourself in some ways. You can just open the top of the bag and dump the whole thing in instead of doing that strange cut-in-half thing you were doing. For water, just eyeball a half bucket of water and then slosh some in until it suits your fancy. Each bag is different. It's odd that the rocks are so large in those bags. Where I live, when I get the same bags, the rocks are pea sized gravel or shale. Looks like you had some round river rock in yours. What are of the US are you in? I am in NC. I have done a lot of mixing from bags like you. Most I have done in a day is around 110 bags and it wore me out. :)
I think he did a good for doing the entire job by himself. Deiswy, you did an amazing job man. Don’t listen to haters and ignorant losers hiding behind keyboards. Yes, you Gary. You are a loser!
