Concrete sweet spot

[ToughButterCup]

When should I make my own? When should I order it in? Or rather what's the maximum amount of concrete you can sensibly make on your own?

 

My mum taught me how to deal creatively with anger: she scrubbed the floor with varying degrees of fury.  The cleanliness of the kitchen floor was an indicator of her mood. Super clean - beware, modestly so - all was well, dirty - she was on holiday. Then I had to do it.

 

I inherited that gene from her; but I've got several similar ones that all deal with the urge to cope positively with stress. There's one that sends me running, another that leaves me cold and silent, yet another which makes laugh nervously. 

Yesterday was a bad day (well the first bit of it was). Thinking about it, I got this sudden urge to mix a load of concrete and pour the gable ends of the piggery: about a cubic meter. Mixing that much (and humping it up a ladder and pouring it) should take the edge off my annoyance shouldn't it?

 

And then the thinking gene cut in.

Tell me; what's the most concrete you'll mix and pour by hand on your own? No help, no cheating, no fantasizing, no fibbing allowed. No Welsh one liners either @Nickfromwales

[Triassic]

I mixed my own concrete for the base for my cabin in the woods, four big bags of ballast. It was hard work! But easier than pushing a wheel barrow of concrete up the drive and across a garden into an orchard, at least 100 yards.

 

if I were you I'd get the local barrow mix guy in. 

 

Maybe Debbie could help 

 

Edited August 12, 2017 by Triassic

[PeterW]

Hand mixed over two cube in about 3 hours - that was 3 of us, one filling the mixer, one barrowing and one levelling

 

Never again ..! 

 

The trick is to use gauging boxes so your mix is consistent but mindless in its mixing ... but on your own and without a mozer

..? I think you would lose faith after the first two loads as wet concrete is heavy and awkward to move in buckets.  

[Nickfromwales]

It's just the speed of tuning the mixes out that will kill it imo. Unless you have 2 mixers, someone loading the next mixer the second the first is full and turning them you'll never get any consistency. Given the importance of this mix I'd just buy it in, pay for the half hour extra wagon fee, and get the guy to dump into the barrows ( plural ). 

The mixes will need a long time to turn the concrete properly, so, unless it's a dumb slab, forget it. You'll be knackered halfway through the pour too, exactly when you'll need to speed up .   

 

Mini mix will do a cube no probs. 

Edited August 12, 2017 by Nickfromwales

[PeterW]

@recoveringacademic that Quay Concrete link I posted do a batch mixer and a pump ..... think of your knees ..!

[Declan52]

If you have long planks, 12ft-16ft, you can build a long ramp up to your scaffold and shovel it in. You would never keep up filling buckets and going up and down a ladder. Your talking near 80 buckets worth so your knees , fingers and wrists will be broke before you finish. 

Could a mini mix lorry get right up to the scaffold to save you wheel barrowing. Put some polythene down and empty it right beside it. Then it's only fill 4-5 buckets at a time and throw them up or wheel the barrow up and fill away.

Mixed 8 m3 of motar before doing a 3ft wide retaining wall but I never left that mixer all day and could hardly lift my arms to collect the cash when it was done. 

[Russell griffiths]

Are you asking this because you are curious or are you trying to work out when to order readymix?

 

1 cubic metre from a mix on site truck just cost me £120 this was dear because I only had 1 cube. 

 

Answer these questions. 

How much was the bulk bag of ballest, how much for cement,

add these together and it is utterly pointless to mix your own if you need anything like a cube. 

Three barrow loads needed on Sunday afternoon mix it yourself 

 

[ToughButterCup]

8 hours ago, Russell griffiths said:

Are you asking this because you are curious or are you trying to work out when to order readymix?

[...]

 

Genuinely curious.  The end in mind is to temper my ambition with realism.

 

Concrete fascinates me. So much really interesting stuff can be done with small amounts of the stuff; make a garden seat, a small table , a worktop, a garden toy, a base for a dog run, used to make a vehicle inspection ramp. 

It can be coloured, textured, shaped, filled with glass beads or broken glass, formed into elegant curves.

And can be extremely strong - I'm thinking of ferrocrete boats: I sailed on one which hit a partly  sunken shipping container in the Clyde: the hull was hardly scratched.

 

 

[iSelfBuild]

I mixed about 35 m3 C35 for our retaining wall in a Belle Mini Mix  I spent days shovelling several loads of  28T tipped ballast into the mixer, and scooped it into the giant drainage pipe to let gravity do the work and fill down into the wall cavity. Don't do it, it's not fun and I fortunately had gravity on my side. For the next cabin I'm pumping all the concrete!

[CC45]

I mixed 10 bulk bags worth of concrete last weekend - easier when I was 20 years younger. Steady pace seems to be the key now.