Concrete pour today! Any advise?

[dfeck]

Today is the day for pouring my slab under my lean-too. In my previous post, I will be renting a concrete buggy that holds 16 cu. ft. of material. Since this will be my first time using a buggy does anyone with experience have any suggestions. I will need to move the concrete ~120 feet to th pour site. How fast are the buggies? How easy are they to use?
Thanks,
Doug

 

[MossRoad]

Get as much help as you can, as that concrete gets heavy and sets up faster than you want. Good luck with your pour. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[yooperdave]

Make sure you have good traction & check the gas & oil.

It is not too hard to get stuck with all of that weight.

You want a sure thing now - no surprizes.

Good luck

Yooper Dave

 

[Spencer]

I don't have any advice to offer but I do have a request. If you have the ability to take and post pictures of your project I would love to see them.

 

[Currmudgeon]

The concrete truck driver will want to add water to the mix. This will increase the slump and make it slightly easier to handle. But it will reduce the strength.

I'd avoid adding water if I could still screed the stuff out adequately.

Have a few friends around. Screeding and shoveling are labor intensive. It gets REALLY labor intensive if the struff starts to set.

Plan where he will dump the excess.

 

[BubbaJr]

Make sure your path between the concrete truck and the shed is as level and smooth as possible, otherwise you will be slopping the concrete over the top of the bucket. Forget about speed until you are confident that the path you chose is smooth and obstacle free, then you can go faster. Otherwise have a plan on how to clean up 16 cf of wet concrete. They are pretty easy to drive, just use a lot of common sense. Designate an area for the concrete truck driver to clean up his chutes or he will do it just exactly where you don't want it, and it gets messy. Also have an area where you can clean off your concrete smoothing tools, boots, etc. as that can get messy also. Make sure the concrete truck driver doesn't wander off the driveway........big ruts!!
Good Luck /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[dfeck]

Well the concrete pour went very smoothly. Not pun intended! The concrete buggy was very useful and easy to use. We poured ~2.5 yards of concrete in 30 min. After the pour we spent another hour or so floating and finishing the concrete. There was a lot of concern about the concrete "spilling" over the edge of the buggy. There wasn't a single issue with this. We started with a slump of 4.5 and increased that to 5.5 after the 3rd trip. I would have been happy with the 4.5 but my brother had it increased because he thought we were working to hard to move it. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif I took some PICs before and after the pour. I'll post the PICs within a few days.

Thanks,
Doug