Pouring a Perfect 10'x10' Slab with the Harbor Freight Cement Mixer 

Many seem to forget the pride of doing projects on their own. I's not even always to save money (even if the case most of the time).

Nice concrete work for being new at it. And excellent video...short and direct to the point. Thank you!

One time I did a drive way with my pops ,we threw in galvanized fence, pieces of metal..any scraps of metal we could find..30 years later the drive way is still there, no Cracks ,no sinking still good

I just used this video to show my 4yo how a cement mixer works, recently found a Bob the builder "dizzy" cement mixer which is also orange just like your mixer, thankyou

What a style of work and thanks sharing for video. Thanks.

I just finished pouring 2 cubic yards of concrete into piers using a Home Depot concrete mixer that looks similar to yours. I used 60 lb bags, and mixed two at a time. I put 4 quarts of water in the mixer, then the two bags of concrete, and let it mix for a couple of minutes. Added 1 more quart, then a few sprays from the hose until the consistency was right. Instead of moving concrete from the mixer to the piers, I placed the mixer next to each hole, and built a chute out of scrap lumber and plywood so I could pour directly into the holes. I didn't carry or wheelbarrow any wet concrete. Worked pretty well. I'm just glad to be done with that job. 128 bags of concrete is a lot for my poor old body to lift.

A mixer certainly helped. I've done my small concrete projects with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. All that labor, particularly managing those 80-pound bags illustrates why calling for a concrete truck might make sense for any project much bigger than this one.

I have been thinking of pouring a small slab in the back. This video is very well done and easy to follow. Really great job with cement work and video!!

Great job. Looks awesome

Awesome demonstration

My son and I used a mixer just like this one and we put 2 1/2 bags cement mix and it work really good for as

THANKS FOR THE CONTENT BRO!

I've loved my HF mixer! Only problems were dry zones. I would have to stop the mixer, use a gardening hand hoe and break up the dry zones. Mostly, I've only done 12" piers and two 5'x5' slabs. I've always oiled my forms, poured wet, screeded, misted with water, and waited about 45 minutes to let it start setting up. Then come in with my float and trowels to smooth it out.

Just bought one these. I was wondering about one or two bags and that answers my question. I was doing one bag at a time for a small 2’ x 4’ slab and it didn’t seem like two would work well. Definitely need to lower down as far as you can for a good mix like you said.

Good job!! Spray some water onto the hardcore, this will help bind the mix your about to pour. For your next slab move your mixer into the slab area itself, or directly adjacent. Fill the mixer to capacity!!! Mix and drop the mix directly into the slab area or scoop it out with a shovel, anyhow, just get the mix on the floor and start mixing again, as you want speed!! 8 hours you need a medal!!! Don't bother hand floating yet! put your float to the side. Start dumping the mix from the house and work backwards, away in a horizontal plane parallel to the house., Every few feet or so, You and your wife or a friend. stand either side of the slab and out side the slab, take a straight edge of timber, say 2" By 3", rest it on either side of your edges as a guide to level the mix and draw your mix backwards away from your house, using small up and down movements lifting and pressing the timber up and down onto the mix. This is called tamping the mix, or drawing up the fat, as water will rise to the surface. Add more mix to shallow areas and scrape high areas flat and re-tamp, keep going moving away from the house until you have to lift you mixer out of the slab area. OK now you can look at your slab and apply a finish with a broom, float. or leave it as tamped finish etc, as you please. Easy when you know how!!! Hopefully this will save you time and effort in the future. Adding wire mesh to the slab will give it greater strength, it depends on the load you plan to have on the slab, but it needs to be in the centre of the slab. I would add mesh. Also allow room for some expansion for the slab in hot weather, so your slab will not crack!! But now we're starting to get all technical. Anyway, good effort mate!! 8 hours with a little bucket, good for you!!!

Your seement job looks great.

That was so great and interesting good technique . Appreciate your video😊

Great direct video...Some of the comments by watchers helped as well. I am planning a 2.55m3 slab but in three stages.... and I am super overthinking it.... First time for me as well... ready mix is outside my budget... this video helped loads thanks... wish me luck !!

DIY projects are the best, especially when they go right. Nice work. Only (slight) criticism, a standard pour is 4 inches. 6 inch forms, two inches of aggregate, 4 inches of cement. That is the winning combination and pretty much an industry standard. And allows for heavier items placed on what is known as an “Honest Four.” You did great for a home owner with no experience.

Good job

Purchased to mix dirt for my greenhouse and love it. Much. More productive and less tiring than mixing by hand. Even built a tarp hut to keep "Punkin" in. Yes...he has a name 😃

Thinking of doing a 12 x 10 for a shed in the back 40

A simple hack after poring the cement you can add cement leveler and brush it. It will look like one nice solid piece.

Good job dude,forget what others say including the so call professionals you wanted it you started it and got it done congrats 👍

You must have a hell of an eye for level, nice work!

Thank you. Im looking to do my own driveway and on a budget ao im glad to hear the mixer is priced decent.

You could of just put the mixer inside of the patio space and move it back as you pour until you run out of space then take it out

You could also use a metal ramp to pour out the concrete in the form

See ment mixer! That is rich. Great job. Nice video. I may have lifted the mixer with old pallets and created a run way for a wheel barrow but I can’t fault how you did it. The heavy see ment was high in the pickup and you worked down hill to the buckets. 52 buckets. Awesome. Great job thinking through the job. Thank you for sharing your see ment recipe… and the video.

Good effort!

You just made up my mind. After hearing that this took 8 hours and seeing all that work, I just hired a concrete company to pour my slab.

Awesome video. The hard work you put in paid off for a finished product. A few notes for future projects: concrete and cement are two different things. Cement is an ingredient in concrete. Concrete is the entire mixture. Water first in the mixer. Also, wear a dust mask, silica dust is not forgiving. A 5gal bucket full of concrete weighs about 100 pounds. Wire mesh is fine for any pour, but it should be suspended in the middle slab for structural integrity. Rebar should be used for anything over 4 inches thick. It also needs to be suspended in the middle of the slab. Best of luck with future projects.

He said he used 52 80lb bags at 5bag. 260bucks not bad,a contractor wanted to charge me 4k for the same size, good for you

It might have been possible to set the mixer in the area to be covered and dump directly onto the base until you worked yourself into a corner. I hated to see you work so hard, but I appreciate it. Great video, especially the information about the mixing process that worked best for you.

I poured a 6’x3’x4” slab last weekend by myself. Used an earlier model of that mixer and I screeded as I went. It was tough even at that size so you have my respect. A thought for next time is to have the top of the forms boards to be your screed level and screed as you go. I found putting the right amount of water in first is the way to go. I also used 50# bags x2 per batch and kept the mixer running the whole time.

Great video! How about putting the mixer inside the forms and moving it toward the corner then out for the last pour?

I’m about to pour me a small slab next to my garage to park on so this video definitely helped

Screed, Screed, Screed my Man!

I bought the same mixer to do a chimney. Thing worked so good for the price. Some nuts and bolts fell off but it’s still running strong. I did a 30ft chimney on a 6 x 4 concrete slab, mortar scratch wall and stone veneers. I think I used about 50 50lbs bags of mortar and 25 80lbs bags of concrete, I’m just guestimating. But it was around there.

Nice work. I'm sure you'll get the usual hate comments, but the only thing that matters is that you are happy. I've done a couple of similar projects with the HF mixer. I do always mix 2 full 80lb bags. I put the full amount of water for all 160lbs in first, then I put one bag in, and wait until it's pretty much all liquid (1-2min), then I put in the 2nd bag and wait another 2-3 min for it to finish mixing. The 5 gallon bucket slowed you waaaay down, but hey, you gotta use what you have. Some sort of ramp to dump it straight in to the form, might have worked. Anyway, the 160lbs sometimes is hard for the HF mixer to even spin!

I had one of those for long time did a bunch of projects with it. I built a retaining wall filled each cylinder with concrete also do a few bags every weekend. I gave it to a friend he used it for bunch of them also. Need to pour about a yard of concrete probably rent one of those mixers you tow behind your pickup holds a yard I can get it right in there ad dump it from the mixer.

Set up mixer in area mix and dump rite into area and have someone mixing bags and dumpin movin mixer along

good first go , suggestion lift the wire mesh up to the center of the the slab

Thanks for the video. It's good to see what can be done with a straightforward approach and minimal expense. I want to do a patio behind the house and it's really useful to see what other people experienced. I don't think it's even feasible to get a concrete truck back there without massive prep work or by using a skid steer or similar piece of rental equipment to run back and forth 20 times and rip up the yard. Since it'd be $$$$ to hire a contractor to do it, I could instead spend some of that money on purchasing more heavy duty concrete equipment or renting it anyway. I have a small mixer similar to the harbor freight mixer--but it's pretty labor intensive to even do small projects. Very helpful, thanks.

You earned a subscriber. As for the folks saying "Call a professional company" etc, NOTE THEY ARE ALL WATCHING *THIS VIDEO* revealing the fact that they don't want to hire the professional. Self-defeating. You did a great job and it is inspiring. Thank you, Goodsir, for sharing with us all. Hats off. ☝️

Most of these people who say they’d use a concrete company will be working long after you retire-and they still won’t know how to change a flat tire. Nice job, brother.

Put some self leveling compound in the mix and it’ll help level itself

My same Harbor freight mixer will take two 60 pound bags but only one 80 pound bag. Thanks for the video.

Cool Video 🫡

It looks like it Turned out great looks like you did a good job Do you think it would have been a little better if your concrete was a little more wetter while you were pouring all of that and then as you Get to the end make it not so wet. I'm just wondering. Give you more time to work with the 1st part of the pour

Put it on second marker. Fill with water to first ring in mixer add 1 80 or 60 pound bag do small squirts till it flops. This machine will last a few years sitting in Ohio winters outside. It's a champ...

You could have divided that patio into 4 small jobs. When the concrete is dried, use a saw to cut the joints that already exist, that will clean up the joints. Then blow all the debris out of the joints and caulk. The 4 smaller jobs will allow you time to finish the edges and surface Make sure the rebar spans across all the joints and don't saw too deep. People tend to think they have to pour concrete all at one time which isn't always the case. Slow down and break big jobs up into small jobs with some planning.

Looks good to me

Works great with 2 60lbs bags. Spray inside with water, turn mixer straight up and plop bag on top the bust it with a hoe. Much easier than trying to dump/pour the bag. Move mixer the #2 position, turn her on add water to get a good slurry going. Don’t want it binding up on the mixing paddles. Turn it off. Back to upright, add next bag, then back to #2 and let it run. Because the first bag is more slurry, second bag mixes well and you can water as needed. Very consistent result every time. I’ve even done a third 60# just to get done but it’s the same process, just harder to mix because you can’t get a good angle on the bowl, but it’ll do it in a pinch. With 2 60# you can get a good rhythm going especially if you can be inside the pour area and mix and dump. But this also work really well for a wheel barrow, very little spillage.

How's this slab holding up? Any cracks? I would be concerned the drainage aggregate would start to fall away since there's nothing to hold it in place around the perimeter.

How many bags of 80 lbs concrete mix needed for this 10x10 ft project? Great job though, I am planning to do mine soon. Thank you for making this very informative video!

Good job buddy. I would have just moved the mixer onto the hard core base and mix and tipped from there.

I used rebar. 1/2 in. hooked the ends using a fire, blown hot enough to melt the ends in a " hook "

This looks like an absolute nightmare day! Im gonna hire a concete guy. In my area, the nocrete bags alone would be $300 and the mixer will cost $300. I can hire somebody to do the slab for $1,000. That means in an eight hour day with you and your helper (16 man hrs) you poured a slab for $25 an hr. I love DIY but for $25 an hour i would rather hire it out. Thank you so much for the true info!

Why didnt you just put the mixer inside the forms and just dump instead of using bucket

FGood job. That bucket stuff had to get pretty old by the end of the project, eh? I made a chute for my HF out of a plastic 55-gallon drum. I split it down the middle and hug it from the frame under the drum. I extended it behind the drum to catch the pour when tilting the drum all the down. It makes the job much easier when pouring because you can pour the mix directly into your forms, plus no wheelbarrow to tip over and clean up when the job is done. I don't like the location of the start/stop switch and plan to either relocate it to the top of the motor cover or make an industrial switch on a pigtail so that I can control the machine from either side of the machine.

Yall did great man also u saved alot of money and 8 hours for that yall good job. Here some tips for you next time 1 .place a concrete bag on the bottom on that little leg to make it more stable 2. U can mark a bucket when u find out how much water your comfortable,but on this unit I fill it to like the gasket seal and then add lil bit depends how I need it 3.one could lay a tarp or wood and cut alot bags in half flip and make a pile and and u can shovel it or u can dump them over shoulder however 4.stick with two bags 80 lbs for sure and when it's mixing since u put that concrete bag to make it more stable ,preferably me I grab the handle release it and start tilting it even more and it mixes so fast especially when I have mix something dry or some high psi and only allowed the exact water amount 5.instead of building up the concrete all the way on a big pour only fill like half 2inches and do a little area like that then when your ready fill the 2 inches then bull float a large area instead of little sections everywhere and stoping so much I got many more but im sure your u got it under control good job again Subcribedddddd!!

You used cement mix bags, it did not dried on you ? it is kinda big slap 10x10

Is that the 1.25 yard mixer ?

The video i was looking for but i think that the metal net should stay in the middle of the concrete Just to absorbe the dilatation and contraction and prevent the concrete to cracks.

USE an N100 RESPIRATOR ... ALWAYS WHEN WORKING AROUND CEMENT AND POURING THAT SAND INTO the mixer or wherever. That dust can mess you up !!

Instead of doing the 5 gallon bucket routine, just put the mixer in the pour area and dump it straight to the ground, saves a lot of work and no wheelbarrow needed.

WOW! I think a wheelbarrow and bigger batches would've helped a lot, but I've never done this before. haha. Great job man

Is your wire laying on the gravel or raised up ?

Good job. Sure beats mixing concrete by hand in a washtub.

How long to just do the pouring? I get you had time in the prep work but trying to get the pour time by itself. Thanks!

you def dont need rebar, or wire mesh, foot traffic only? nice video

The wire mesh is to support the concrete, not separate it from the gravel. Use "chairs" to elevate it 1/2 way into the concrete.

How many bags did you use for that size ov slab?

Wet down the mixer real good first , then add the concrete! It can mix for a while. Can always add more water or mix, be patient and make sure you have the right texture for your project.

Cringy in the best way. Getting it done is what! I have recently taken some building courses at my local community college and went deep with concrete. The words you use are not correct to the profession but the result is perfection for the intended use. How did your back feel after all this? Looking to do similar work, already have the mixer but only used it for fence posts at this point.

I work in precast concrete, try not to move/scoop concrete with your steel trowel. The rivets will pull out eventually.

I am looking to do exactly the same project with my wife, great work and awesome video. May I asked how many bags of concrete have you used? thank you and god bless

How many bags of cement did it take?

Really did a great job for being the first one. Just make sure that wire sits up a lil off the ground so it is in the concrete and the concrete is not on it that helps reinforce the slab. But definitely y’all did a great job. And video was real helpful 👍👍🫡

It's ok for small slab it's low torque for the use it's not a cross beam support for I65 freeway

We poured a 13 by 13. The screws were not complete in our equipment... You can put one 80 lb bag each time which makes it slow but we managed it. We sprayed water and watched consistency instead of measuring. The force of water spray helps too. Edited for better comprehension with use of ChatGpt :) Prepare the Site: Clear the area of any debris or vegetation. Put down 1-2 inches of gravel and level it by tapping to ensure a stable base. Form Your Mold: Construct a wood frame to outline the slab area. We ysed 2x4s. It us actually 3.5 inches! Do not be mistaken. Ensure the form is sturdy and well-secured. You can combine different lengths by screwing tmen together using a 12 inch part on the outer side as well. Pour and Level Masonry Sand: Pour 0.5-1 inch of masonry sand inside the mold. Tap to make the sand dense and flat. Ensure Proper Slope: Measure your level to make sure you have a 1/80th length slope for drainage. Oil the wood form for easy release later. Wet the sand to improve bonding with the concrete. Prepare the Concrete Mix: Mix the concrete so it is not too solid or too liquid. Work quickly if it is hot outside. Pour the Concrete: Pour the concrete, first filling halfway up the mold. Spread it evenly across the entire area. Add Reinforcement: Place your mesh or rebar halfway through the first layer of concrete. Fill to the Top: Continue pouring the concrete to fill the mold to the top. Spread and level it as you go. Level the Surface: Use a straightedge to level the concrete across the entire slab. Move it back and forth in a sawing motion for a smooth surface. Finish with a Magnesium Float: Use a magnesium float to smooth and perfect the surface. This step helps bring moisture to the surface for a better finish. Edge the Slab (Optional): Approximately 1 hour later, you can use an edger to round the edges if desired. You can go back and reedge after 30 min. The edger gets inserted hardly inbetween concrete and wood. I suggest ysing the edge of a knife or float to make space first. Pebbles can get in the way as well. Cure the Concrete: Cover the slab with plastic sheeting or a curing compound to retain moisture. Keep the concrete damp for at least a week to ensure proper curing. We still wet them once a day after a week.

What could have sped the whole thing up? Someone mixing the concrete as youre finishing?

Hey how did you use only 52bags? According to the concrete calculator I need 100 bags for 10x10x4

It’s our new C-ment mixer.

Should of backed in a local E-mix truck where you had your truck parked and had them chute the concrete over.. Probably would of been cheaper than what you spent and alot easier

Did you cost out getting a concrete truck ? My research seems to indicate concrete delivery is about $100-$150 per yard, but there may also be minimum delivery charges ???

Highly recommend rebar. A slab that big would need #3 24” in each direction. Concrete has very little strength without steel. Also a control joint in each direction so when (not if) it cracks it’s won’t be seen. The only two guarantees with concrete are that it’s hard and it cracks!!!!🎉🎉

👍👍

👍💪💪

I'm no concrete person at all but I follow victory outdoors channel. An the wire mess is supposed to be in the middle of the concrete I believe not on bottom. I'm not sure tho

We just dumped it into the form. I think that once the rock rolls out from under your frame the concrete will break.

I used recycled fence for my concrete slab

You went about it the hard way. Put the mixer inside your form and dump it directly. If you were pulling the reinforcement mesh up into the concrete, just roll the mixer along the side of the forms and dump directly. Next time you will have more fun!😁

As long as the chicken fence isn't corosive it would defiantly help durability but you want it inside of the concrete not laying on the floor that makes it useless.

Wow, with my mud mixer you can do 80 80lb bags in a little over an hour.

I need a 20x20 slab, i dont have hours upon hours available to do this work and need a pro final look, so ill have to hire someone.

Water, sand, water, stone, water, then concrete and then add more water as needed. It mixes better that way.

How about half yard mixers? Ive been curious about them

I see guys use 2 60 lb bags or one 80 lb bag. Ill use the 60lb bags easy to use for me, 1 or 2 mix at a time Ill just have to play.