Hauling mixed concrete?

[GLyford]

Only Help I got was better half helped screed it off as I went.

And just that is an amazing amount of help. Running the mixer and carting the cement is a full time job for 1 person, so the screeding interrupts the flow. If that is being taken care of a lot of the worry is gone and you can just get your "groove" on and keep on mixing.

Was talking to a concrete guy just yesterday, and he was saying he hires a new screed guy every 4 years...burns them out, because screeding is ALWAYS done at "foot" level, bent over. If your guys working the concrete rakes are good, the screed guy doesn't have to move a lot of weight. But if they are removing piles and filling in low spots with the screed, then going back over again to relevel you'll just flat wear them out.

 

[ovrszd]

And just that is an amazing amount of help. Running the mixer and carting the cement is a full time job for 1 person, so the screeding interrupts the flow. If that is being taken care of a lot of the worry is gone and you can just get your "groove" on and keep on mixing.

Was talking to a concrete guy just yesterday, and he was saying he hires a new screed guy every 4 years...burns them out, because screeding is ALWAYS done at "foot" level, bent over. If your guys working the concrete rakes are good, the screed guy doesn't have to move a lot of weight. But if they are removing piles and filling in low spots with the screed, then going back over again to relevel you'll just flat wear them out.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for concrete guys. Young man's game for sure!!!!

 

[Creamer]

I have a tremendous amount of respect for concrete guys. Young man's game for sure!!!!

Amen to that! You are always working bent over with heavy stuff.

 

[bigtiller]

Amen to that! You are always working bent over with heavy stuff.

Yep, and everything is way down there on the ground My bendover doesn't work like it used to.

 

[Egon]

Pouring Concrete, always fun, expesially on a nice hot day.

With an experienced crew the labour factor goes way down. The fellow on the chute just lays down the right amounts so a couple fellows on floats can get a nice even surface. Screening is a minimum with only small amounts of concrete on the screed at one time. In fact there will be times when it looks like all the fellows are standing around and watching.

No fellows out shovelling in front of the screed.

 

[Paddy]

I have mixed many small batches of concrete. When we were building I had piles of Crushed stone, pea gravel and sand. Simple as a ratio of 123, 1 portland, 2 pea gravel, 3 crushed stone.

I mix in my front end loader, use 5 gal buckets for measuring. You'd think mixing a big batch with a hoe and shovel would be bad, it's not if you don't guess on the water. The closer you get the water volume, the easier the mixing.

In Mexico they do this in the street. A dump truck brings in the crushed stone and dumps it on the street. Then it is flatened and a layer of smaller stone is spread on top. Finally the portland goes on top. Huge heap now! Then 4 or 5 guys work it from the sides only adding water where they are mixing. Once they have two buckets mixed, they carry it to the slab.

 

[ovrszd]

I have mixed many small batches of concrete. When we were building I had piles of Crushed stone, pea gravel and sand. Simple as a ratio of 123, 1 portland, 2 pea gravel, 3 crushed stone.

I mix in my front end loader, use 5 gal buckets for measuring. You'd think mixing a big batch with a hoe and shovel would be bad, it's not if you don't guess on the water. The closer you get the water volume, the easier the mixing.

In Mexico they do this in the street. A dump truck brings in the crushed stone and dumps it on the street. Then it is flatened and a layer of smaller stone is spread on top. Finally the portland goes on top. Huge heap now! Then 4 or 5 guys work it from the sides only adding water where they are mixing. Once they have two buckets mixed, they carry it to the slab.

In Korea if they are working on a multi-story building they build scaffolding up the side of the building and hand bucket the concrete to the top passing it from one to the next worker. I've got a pic somewhere in my archives, I'll see if I can find it.

 

[Oldoak]

In Korea if they are working on a multi-story building they build scaffolding up the side of the building and hand bucket the concrete to the top passing it from one to the next worker. I've got a pic somewhere in my archives, I'll see if I can find it.

Are you suggesting the O.P. haul it home one bucket at a time?

 

[ovrszd]

Are you suggesting the O.P. haul it home one bucket at a time?

Yes....

 

[dfkrug]

This sounds like a great time to buy a 3pt cement mixer. Drive over to the bags,
toss a few in and some water then let it mix while you drive over to the pour site. Certainly not the cheapest
method but, being a tractor site, it's the most tractory.

Amen! I was wondering if someone would bring that up.

I have paid for mine many times over, and I can still do smallish pours despite my creeping decrepitude.

The last time I used it, I elected to buy 100 bags or so of the 5000psi pea-gravel concrete at the big
box store. I exploited their young and energetic staff to load my PU. I still had to unload it, however, so
I got the 60# old guy bags. In the past I have always used my own piles of gravel, sand, and half-sacks
of Portland. I find that the latter method is actually easier, as shoveling the aggregates into the drum
is easier than loading the bags.

Over the years, I have used every method I have heard of, except dumping piles in the street and
manually mixing it.

 

[GLyford]

We did some growing up using the driveway, does that count? Also, we made a mixing platform out of a couple sheets of ply a couple of times. I actually like making the mix that way (as well as dumping a bag in the wheelbarrow, adding water, and mixing in with a garden hoe). Doesn't take terribly long, either.

 

[jenkinsph]

Amen! I was wondering if someone would bring that up.

I have paid for mine many times over, and I can still do smallish pours despite my creeping decrepitude.

The last time I used it, I elected to buy 100 bags or so of the 5000psi pea-gravel concrete at the big
box store. I exploited their young and energetic staff to load my PU. I still had to unload it, however, so
I got the 60# old guy bags. In the past I have always used my own piles of gravel, sand, and half-sacks
of Portland. I find that the latter method is actually easier, as shoveling the aggregates into the drum
is easier than loading the bags.

Over the years, I have used every method I have heard of, except dumping piles in the street and
manually mixing it.

In my locale Lowes has good prices on concrete bags delivered to the small farms so that is what I use. The last project I worked this year required about 300 bags of 50 lbs. each. That is a lot easier to handle than the 80 lb. sacks loading into a small mixer. The 50lb. sacks cost about $2 more total cost over buying the 80lb. sacks, that was $2 bucks well spent in my opinion.

Get to do this again next week, starting a new project with similar concrete water boxes.

Mixing concrete in the street. Sounds like a good way to get run out of town.

 

[dodge man]

Another thought, but isn't ready mix hauled to the site going to be a higher quality concrete? In my opinion it is.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Sacked quikrete is listed at 4000psi although most folks probably use too much water to get that. A good readymix company with a good driver can be counted on for good concrete. Sometimes you can get a truck full of hot concrete (starting to set) or too wet. The folks that mix their own shovel by shovel can get excellent concrete. In my experience it all depends. Not much of a guideline!

 

[downsizingnow48]

For the record, I have never mixed concrete in the street nor even thought of it.

 

[BoylermanCT]

If you are going to haul the concrete, make sure you are using a trailer and not a pickup. 1 yard of concrete is 4000 lbs, so 3/4 yard is 3000 lbs. This is beyond the capacity of most pickups. Would be an easy load for any dual axle trailer or some single axle trailers.

 

[ArlyA]

We have a bit of experience at mixing concrete. (sorry if someone has already mention the following) The problem with moving mixed material, is the aggregate settles to the bottom as you drive to the job and its very, very hard to get it mixed back in, that is to make it correct/consistent. We had an bridge abutment pour and did it on site using 100, 80lb bags since we could not get a truck to the job site.. Attached is some photos. This was setup with the bags being somewhat higher than the mixers and doing that, reduced the labor, lots!. This worked like a dream and with 2 mixers running, we had them poured in less than 4 hours.. As another fellow mentioned, most people add waaaaay to much water to the mix.

 

[jenkinsph]

When building boxes on the irrigation ditches where I can not get a mixer truck I use this set up. An F550 service truck with generator and water tank in bed, run water hose and extension cord to form location. Use the 110 to carry two thirds of a pallet of sackrete and adjust height for easy transfer to the mixer. Use a wheel barrow mixer within a couple of feet from the form. Nobody has to work very hard to do this and can mix about 1 pallet an hour (rough guess).

For the formed walls it helps to have a second person to help dump the concrete into a bucket to pour in the walls. The slabs I can do by myself.

 

[HCJtractor]

I decided to buy the concrete and have it delivered, rather than mix it. Glad I did, as it was easy. The truck could place the chute right into my forms. Was a little more expensive, but my back appreciated not having to wrestle bags of concrete.
All you guys have good stories. The last picture of the bridge pour was interesting. If I had all thise volunteers, i would have used my mixer!

{
}

 

[GLyford]

Glad you got it done, that's the big thing.