Lyrch75
Bronze Member
Worked as a project manager for a commercial contractor a few years ago.
What I learned from this experience in regards to this subject.
1. Site prep. We had a sheepsfoot vibratory roller, do not recall its size at the moment, but we ran the bejeezus out of that machine. Compact the soil, throw on the big gravel, hit it again, throw on the smalls, hit it again but with the drum roller. If at any of these passes we found a bad spot, excavate and dump good fill in and restart the compaction. Boss's theory was that running the **** out of the machine would pay for itself when he did not have to repair concrete and get the rep for doing cheesy concrete.
2. Use modern admixtured concrete mixes. Talk to the concrete guys and figure out what mixture is the best for the project, entirely too many folks still say they want six sack when they need an entirely different set of properties.
3. 2-3"" cover over the wire mesh, run the bar about that far below the mesh, unless doing so would put the rebar too close to the bottom of the pad. If you are pouring 10+" of concrete run two sets of bar and one of mesh. IF you are pouring that thick for a need beyond heavy vehicle or wheeled equipment usage, get an engineer involved, it will save you $$ in the long run.
4. Cut as soon as you can work on the concrete. The guys that we used for our flat work would start the pour at 7am have the pour finished by noon and be cutting at the end of lunch. The longer you wait the more chances you have for a stress line developing where you do not want it.
5. We would use 4" for automobile trafficked areas, 6" for medium truck traffic (light delivery rigs etc) and 8" for semi-trucks driving, 12" for heavy trucks or semis doing a lot of turning. Use the right amount of steel in the right places on a properly prepped surface and that is all you really need.
What I learned from this experience in regards to this subject.
1. Site prep. We had a sheepsfoot vibratory roller, do not recall its size at the moment, but we ran the bejeezus out of that machine. Compact the soil, throw on the big gravel, hit it again, throw on the smalls, hit it again but with the drum roller. If at any of these passes we found a bad spot, excavate and dump good fill in and restart the compaction. Boss's theory was that running the **** out of the machine would pay for itself when he did not have to repair concrete and get the rep for doing cheesy concrete.
2. Use modern admixtured concrete mixes. Talk to the concrete guys and figure out what mixture is the best for the project, entirely too many folks still say they want six sack when they need an entirely different set of properties.
3. 2-3"" cover over the wire mesh, run the bar about that far below the mesh, unless doing so would put the rebar too close to the bottom of the pad. If you are pouring 10+" of concrete run two sets of bar and one of mesh. IF you are pouring that thick for a need beyond heavy vehicle or wheeled equipment usage, get an engineer involved, it will save you $$ in the long run.
4. Cut as soon as you can work on the concrete. The guys that we used for our flat work would start the pour at 7am have the pour finished by noon and be cutting at the end of lunch. The longer you wait the more chances you have for a stress line developing where you do not want it.
5. We would use 4" for automobile trafficked areas, 6" for medium truck traffic (light delivery rigs etc) and 8" for semi-trucks driving, 12" for heavy trucks or semis doing a lot of turning. Use the right amount of steel in the right places on a properly prepped surface and that is all you really need.
