"pouring" *dry* concrete

Water is just a carrying agent mostly. The least slump you can work with is the best. I never go more than 4.

If you do it dry you mist it down and cover it up with a vapor barrier,tarp or what ever. It will take longer to harden. Its best use for small areas and regular low slump mix for larger areas

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Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.

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Prof Kingsfield. Rules!!





http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

a hoe and wheel barrow work quite well if you're mixing up for a small slab, done plenty like that, you could even splurge and get a proper mixing tool with the holes in the blade.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.

Having eaten more concrete than most have poured ( 200-300 cu yds/wk for nearly 13 yrs), I never once encountered a concrete truck of dry mix. Low slump yes, even on a 100 degree day with 1% calcium added due to a shelter being set the next morning.

I suspect that there is a reason for this. Even the 8,000 psi poured in a truck parking lot was with water ... not dry with water sprayed later to enhance strength. I've also poured many a bag of QuiKrete without ever seeing anything other than " mix with water" on the bag.

I'm with Fordy on fence posts. I've also seen many a bag hardened due to just dew. Some set up hard, some are brittle - read about cold joints.

Ye speak of concerns with labor involved. Seek something more lasting ( assumed by using concrete) ... do it right and do it only once. Mix it up properly and be done with it.

I tend to picture someone sitting in a lawn chair spraying dry concrete with a garden hose and expecting a perfect slab ... it ain't like that. No degradation of your intent intended .... just what I pictured and it won't work.

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Going hungry ain't much of a plan

Adding that even with fence posts in the manner Fordy spoke of .... it's best to juke it ( basically mixing it in the hole).

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Going hungry ain't much of a plan

Something to think about is frost too. Although I have not done what you are saying, I did quite a bit of reading about it to see if I wanted to do it for garden walkways.
Two things were mentioned as problems- one was lots of rain which would wash away the unset levels of the concrete. The other was that it was it was not stable in a place where frost heave would be an issue.

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For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

Well, I know you cant portland cement, and mix it in with soil or sand and have a floor strong enough for hogs..about a bag of portland to 9'square I think, 3" deep. Level and turn on sprinkler.
Another fella tilled up the shops dirt floor, hauled some sand, tiller it up, i disrember how many bags of portland, but he said it was about a quarter of what the cement truck would have cost. It was as hard and hardwearing as you'd want for a home workshop on a budget.

My carport is 12'x20' I added 3" of sand on top of the packed crushed rock base that was done 15 years prior. Spread a sack of Portland cement for each square yard, mixed in with a garden rake. Screeded it off with a 2"x4" and watered it well with a fine mist from a hose nozzle. I have done this with many walk ways. I use a 2"x4" for the form, add sand and Portland cement. Water well....James

But ye mixed it ... not the same as the perceived suggestion of breaking bags and watering .... ye made concrete and all was well eh?

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Going hungry ain't much of a plan

If ya want to test it out take a bag of crete and or quick crete and let it set outside

__________________
Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.

FREEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOMMM!!!

Prof Kingsfield. Rules!!





http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

And yet again. research cold joints - it is what it is. Partial mix ain't concrete as it should be ... craftsmen should know better.

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Going hungry ain't much of a plan

If you haven't noticed there is a big difference between what is done by farmers. professionals and alternate construction methods talked about on this forum. good luck trying to get everyone to do it your way

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Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.

FREEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOMMM!!!

Prof Kingsfield. Rules!!





http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

It ain't about my way.

I quickly concede that ye are a master craftsman of wood ...

But ye will not cause me to sway from that which is proper .... and attempting to lackadaisically imply conformance to a substandard application without substantiation will not take place. Farmers and homesteaders are not hicks .... all should take heed of the instructions provided.

Please provide more information on your ways as prescribed by the manufacturer of your materials.

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Going hungry ain't much of a plan

educate me---

Ok--I have wondered about some soft spots==one is at and area in my driveway---

It is heavy traffic---it is just sand with gravel that goes missing each spring ---not last winter I used alot of coal ash--it is heavy and that area was firmer--so I was thinking of spreading a dry mix (tips for what I might use) to ready prevent another spring where the goo in a foot deep and I have to block the driveway to prevent cars from ending their life in the goo pits of kasilof.---I have had laced boot suck off miy feet ---I hate the dreaded break up season in Alaska.

It might be good for you to know that I started my career of woodworking stacking Simmonds 2x4 steel forms for poured basements. Two years later I was job superintendent for a holiday Inn project. And it was as a working superintendent. No setting on your behind in those days.
It again was stacking 2x4 Simmonds steel forms on jack post to pour the ceilings. I was taught by a farmer and a master concrete technician. Who today would probably get fired for the way they treated employees because they "taught" you and expected you to learn and were perfectionist. We hand troweled the finish. after using a power trowel.

I,ve poured a few hundred yards of concrete. Maybe not as many as you. But I learned the dry method from the farmer. Not all instructions are written on a bag. I can take you out back and show you a 30 x60 slab that was puored by me and one hillbilly and to this day has only one hairline crack in it. Becasue I refuse to use fiberglass reenforced concrete . Its no good. And just for a little FYI I know the guy that first invented the front unloading truck which the unions hated because it killed their days of screwing around with the rear unloader up

All i really wanted to do from the start was work with the master trim carpenter they . I eventually got there and learned the same way , It was a No BS back then. But it has served me well and those who worked for me over the years. Just because some manufacture says thus and so isnt the final word. Fiberglass concrete being proof of that. Ya can't get a good finish on it.
I've also pured whole barn floors where you spend the day and get that nice flat smooth finish and smile and the farmer comes in and says that's great . Then takes a rake and goes over the whole thing. So his cows don't slip . Lesson learned. Frankly I wonder some days when you see the slop that is poured how some buildings even stand

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Thinking is hard. Feeling and believing a storyline is easy.

FREEEEEEEDDDDDDDOOOOOOMMM!!!

Prof Kingsfield. Rules!!





http://tnwoodwright.blogspot.com/

several years ago we did an addition on our woodshed and we put down the cement dry and then we sprayed it down with water..really well..

it doesn't give you a pretty finish and isn't as smooth as finished concrete..but it is durable and easy to walk on ..not slippery..when there is snow and ice on it in the winter when you are messing with wood deliveries that are covered with snow..I appreaciate the lack of slipperiness as I'm a fall risk with my disabilities

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

My tried and true method for concrete is the good old wheelbarrow, but for something the size of a slab, just call a truck and be done with it.

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~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop