Basic cement/ ballast Q

[andyscotland]

According to https://source4me.co.uk/calculate_concrete_mix.php for 0.28 cubic metres you need 90 kg (4 bags) of cement and 0.47 tonnes of mixed ballast.

[Onoff]

42 minutes ago, andyscotland said:

According to https://source4me.co.uk/calculate_concrete_mix.php for 0.28 cubic metres you need 90 kg (4 bags) of cement and 0.47 tonnes of mixed ballast.

 

That's for a 1:2:4 mix isn't it? 

 

I think a 1:2:3 mix, the old "123" mix equates to 1:4 if using all in one ballast.

 

1:2:3 as in:

 

1 part cement 

2 parts sharp sand

3 parts aggregate up to 20mm

 

I reckon if he's got 2/3 tonne left, circa 666kg he'll have enough.

 

Zoot, are these 600mm dia / 500 high formers in the ground yet? Put one next to the ballast pile. Get shovelling. Will the ballast you've got left fill it twice? If so you've enough.

[andyscotland]

43 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

That's for a 1:2:4 mix isn't it? 

 

I think a 1:2:3 mix, the old "123" mix equates to 1:4 if using all in one ballast.

 

So it is, didn't spot that. Yes I believe it's 1:4 for mixed ballast to equate to a 1:2:3

[Russell griffiths]

Bugger me, nothing like over complicating something, I thought you are going to be building an extension, just buy a few more bags and keep what’s left over for the extension. 

 

There no more thinking needed, get out there and get it done. 

[Onoff]

Buy the cement in plastic bags rather than the paper ones if you're going to store it but check the expiry dates on it. 

 

Paper bags if you are going to use immediately. 

 

Ballast just comes in plastic bags. 

 

I tend to cut the top off of cement/aggregate bags neatly with a pair of scissors. Once empty they're handy to keep for filling with small quantities of rubbish from garden waste, to shed clearing rubbish, to excavated hardcore. It saves on buying rubble bags and they're easier to lift.

 

Rather than a shovel I'll often use a bucket for mixing to get exact quantities. Shovel mixes offend me a bit for some reason. Here doing my shed base I used the black builders bucket you can see filled with ballast. I think I did the base 5:1. Can't remember tbh but it's strong I know. Use a smaller bucket or paint kettle, cleaned out 5 or 7.5L plastic paint container etc for smaller mixes etc. Of course lifting a full builders bucket might be too much for some.

 

 

Took me about 4 hours on my own this one. Hardcore consisting of anything; brick, block, tile, flint, slate, bits of mortar and concrete, old slabs, the odd bit of broken glass etc. Might have been some A142 mesh in there too but no photo of that:

 

 

 

Soft sand blinding layer as there's a DPM went on next.

 

 

 

You can see the DPM here:

 

As @Russell griffiths says JFDI! ?

Edited September 1, 2019 by Onoff

[ToughButterCup]

@zoothorn , I know exactly how you feel (felt ?) , I think.

 

I didn't have a clue when I started mixing 'muck' four years ago. So I did lots of research and - gently - asked what to some were annoying questions - many people have no idea why they mix concrete as they do - and  many YooChube videos later, if anything my level of understanding was worse, cos there's nowt like Tinternet for shared ignorance.

And for something as simple as this? Well, it isn't. The variations and permutations of what you can / should / might / ought to do are endless.

Very few instructional videos start with a simple statement of the end-in-mind, fewer still explain why the  videographer did not use techniques that one might reasonably expect. Because doing that is hard.

 

But you can START simple. And begin to learn to enjoy making mistakes. Took me a while did that.

[zoothorn]

11 hours ago, Onoff said:

 

That's for a 1:2:4 mix isn't it? 

 

I think a 1:2:3 mix, the old "123" mix equates to 1:4 if using all in one ballast.

 

1:2:3 as in:

 

1 part cement 

2 parts sharp sand

3 parts aggregate up to 20mm

 

I reckon if he's got 2/3 tonne left, circa 666kg he'll have enough.

 

Zoot, are these 600mm dia / 500 high formers in the ground yet? Put one next to the ballast pile. Get shovelling. Will the ballast you've got left fill it twice? If so you've enough.

 

Understood Onoff & thanks @andyscotland for figures- got in a pickle last ev I couldn't understand A from B. I'm going with what you say.

 

Tubes not in yet- gotta dig far one today. Yes I could shovel ballast into the 2 tubes as a test.. but jeepers that adds a huge extra work/ take me hours/ then back into bag again etc. I'm not sure you see, how much volume the cement & water adds after the setting process etc.

 

 

[zoothorn]

4 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

Bugger me, nothing like over complicating something, I thought you are going to be building an extension, just buy a few more bags and keep what’s left over for the extension. 

 

There no more thinking needed, get out there and get it done. 

 

Well, no: a bit more thinking is needed: I need to get prepped as best I can- the ballast bags 4m above mixer, alot of extra hard work to get it down bucket by bucket, ive never used a mixer before so gotta do each footing flat out/ done.. & I MUST get them bang level (bc the across beam this side will lie directly from one to t'other- if I get one fractionally short cos I run out of xyz, I'm stuffed).

 

And I need to get mix ratio right & ammount of water + gubbins.. I don't even know how best to do this yet.

[zoothorn]

Good pics @Onoff useful those looks great too- one thing against me is the ground on which I'm working. Its a steep 45* slope, so we had to cut the mixer into side & away from 1st tube.. so not only ballast is 4m up a steep slope above mixer, but Ive got to mix into a barrow > push each mix up nasty ground 3m to tube > in.

 

And my barrows got a fkd inner tube dammit I need to prep 1st. If I jumped in today- it'd be a n'mare.

[Ferdinand]

I waiting for the news story that a canoe has run into Zoot's Jetty and sunk with all hands.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Ferdinand

[andyscotland]

@zoothorn easiest option is probably to just crack on with the first pillar.

 

Bring down plenty more ballast / cement than you think you'll need for one pillar (but less than you think you'll need for two) and drop it by the mixer. Count how many buckets you brought.

 

Then start mixing concrete and pouring until the first pillar is full. Count how many buckets you used - easiest to have a bit of card taped to the mixer and a pen on a string and keep a tally as you will be busy!

 

You will now know how many buckets you have left by the mixer, and how many more you need for the second pillar.

 

That's probably a good point to clean the mixer and take a break.

 

You can then bring down enough material for the other pillar - you have time then to order/collect more ballast if you need it. If you need loads get a bulk bag and keep it for the extension, if you need a little bit pop to the diy shop.

 

No point getting too precise with the quantities in advance. Ballast will settle slightly differently depending on the exact ratio of sand/aggregate and how well you compact it. You will also drop some on the way down the hill, and you'll spill some concrete when you pour it into the tube.

 

For the actual mix, most ratios are done by volume so just measure full buckets of each material in the right proportion. If a full bucket is too heavy to lift, find a smaller container and use that (again full).

 

Water volume is trickier, most cements will give an indication of how many litres per bag of cement however this includes any moisture already in the ballast. Kinda have to do it by eye.

 

Use a separate measuring bucket with a scale marked on it, pour it in a bit at a time and stop well before the recommended amount. Let it mix a minute or two then if it looks dry add a little bit more and repeat as necessary. Never spray from the hose direct to the mixer, it's impossible to gauge how much you're putting in. Sometimes it looks dry but just needs another minute of mixing rather than any more water.

 

Ideally once it's in the tube you'd use a vibrating poker to get air bubbles out and make sure each pour mixes with / bonds to the one below. For this job probably not crucial, if you have a power sander you could put on the outside of the tube for a minute or two that would help, and/or just stir the two layers together a bit with a big stick each time you pour a new barrow in.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about being bang on with levels. You can always pack up the beam with slate / mortar / brick / timber / whatever to deal with any small variation. In fact that will probably be easier than trying to level the pillars perfectly to each other as you pour so I'd work on the assumption they'll be slightly out and design on that basis.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, zoothorn said:

Well, no: a bit more thinking is needed:[...]

 

Good for you son. Keep yer brain engaged. 

Most of the old-hands on this board have no idea that they know massive amounts of stuff. They've forgotten how long they have been learning, forgotten how hard-won - and sometimes bitterly so - their experience is. That pain is long forgotten. Now, to them,  its all second nature.

In the research papers on learning its called encultured knowedge. Long serving teachers suffer the same phenonmenon too.

 

But its not second nature to you or me.

[Ferdinand]

One thing to watch for is to find the mixing amount with which your mixer is comfortable. Ideally it is also the amount that relates to a whole number of wheelbarrows-full, so that you use a comfortable but towards the top of your capability load each time.

 

It is also worth reminding yourself that if you are eg coutning shovelfuls to measure your quantity put in the mixer, that as you get more tired your perceptions of how heavy it is will change - so get used to doing a visual check on your amounts as you shovel it in. 

 

If you have bags of ingredients, it may be that you can do no of bags in the proportions to give you your mix and make an amount that is comfortable.

 

But in any case you will get some sense of what you need after the first dozen loads, and a better sense as you do more.

 

F

[Ferdinand]

Found some more Zoot Music.

 

You got a cat?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAuLONmIof0

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Ferdinand

[zoothorn]

56 minutes ago, andyscotland said:

@zoothorn easiest option is probably to just crack on with the first pillar..

 

Andy- thanks so much for this post/ will be following what you say.

 

Yes best to crack on with 1st pillar & take stock. I hadn't thought of bringing ballast down & put next to mixer.. we did it before by me going up 2x 2/3rds full buckets each time brought down > hand to chap mixing. As the hardest part was filling buckets/ carrying, wouldn't I be adding a huge chunk of extra work 1st reforming a pile next to mixer tho? I'm not too happy with shovelling into mixer (safety) happier bucketing in.. tho even this gets me in a bit of a sweat thinking of worst cases etc/ hands nearer the rim.

[zoothorn]

35 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Found some more Zoot Music.

 

You got a cat?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAuLONmIof0

 

 

Aaah.. haven't seen T&J for 30 yrs. I'm so behind the mouse now.. no, I don't have a cat/ awful stinking creatures roam & crap on my property.

[andyscotland]

If you're on your own (even if not) you will be pushed for time and energy to get the material down, straight into mixer, mixed, barrowed and poured all in a single operation.

 

If you bring the material down to the mixer first it may mean a little extra effort (picking it up twice, everything else you'd have had to do anyway).

 

But the advantage a) it gives you a chance to measure what you're using so you can have confidence you'll have enough for the second pillar and b) more importantly, shifting the material initially is not under any time pressure so you can stop as often as you need. Then once it's done you can take a proper break and get your breath back before you start the mixer and enter the flat-out-non-stop stage of the process

 

That trade-off, for me, would always be well worth it.

[Onoff]

1 hour ago, andyscotland said:

Ideally once it's in the tube you'd use a vibrating poker to get air bubbles out and make sure each pour mixes with / bonds to the one below.

 

If you use the Everbuild Integral Waterproofer it is also a deaerator so less air bubbles get formed in the mix that need tamping out.

 

I was going to suggest he attacks it in two hits but couldn't face writing another diatribe...

[andyscotland]

1 minute ago, Onoff said:

I was going to suggest he attacks it in two hits but couldn't face writing another diatribe...

Just had to face reading one then ?

[zoothorn]

5 minutes ago, andyscotland said:

If you're on your own (even if not) you will be pushed for time and energy to get the material down, straight into mixer, mixed, barrowed and poured all in a single operation.

 

If you bring the material down to the mixer first it may mean a little extra effort (picking it up twice, everything else you'd have had to do anyway).

 

But the advantage a) it gives you a chance to measure what you're using so you can have confidence you'll have enough for the second pillar and b) more importantly, shifting the material initially is not under any time pressure so you can stop as often as you need. Then once it's done you can take a proper break and get your breath back before you start the mixer and enter the flat-out-non-stop stage of the process

 

That trade-off, for me, would always be well worth it.

 

Aha ok understood. Yes that's a better plan. Do i need to pile it onto something, or into another huge dumpy bag tho? or can it be dumped on the ground/ getting bits of earth in inneviatbly etc.

[ToughButterCup]

Piece of plywood will do (maybe not OSB) ... or one of these.

Always rinse them off before the muck goes hard.....?  and work out in advance how not to swill  the mixture off into yer mum's flower-bed (like I did ?)

[Onoff]

11 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

 

Aha ok understood. Yes that's a better plan. Do i need to pile it onto something, or into another huge dumpy bag tho? or can it be dumped on the ground/ getting bits of earth in inneviatbly etc.

 

An old tarpaulin is good, not a new one unless you dont mind puncturing it, another empty jumbo bag is an option or a big old bit of DPM. Hell, even an old carpet rolled out. 

[andyscotland]

1 minute ago, zoothorn said:

Aha ok understood. Yes that's a better plan. Do i need to pile it onto something, or into another huge dumpy bag tho? or can it be dumped on the ground/ getting bits of earth in inneviatbly etc.

 

If you're taking it in buckets anyway you could tip into another dumpy bag to keep it all together but that'll be tedious to tip into from a barrow. If barrowing I'd just spread a large tarpaulin (or a dumpy bag cut and "flatpacked" and tip into that. Use some spare [anything] to turn up three sides of the tarp a bit to stop the pile sliding away. Not the end of the world if you collect a few tiny bits of dirt for a job like this, but not too much. And you don't want to lose too much of the sand either, so best to keep it separated from the ground.

[Onoff]

9 minutes ago, AnonymousBosch said:

Piece of plywood will do (maybe not OSB) ... or one of these.

Always rinse them off before the muck goes hard.....?

 

Think we suggested this back in the thread.

[ToughButterCup]

Hmmm Clive, my speed-reading ain't wadit ewestabee.