Cement ratio mix

I use a heaping shovel as my measure. I almost never measure the water other than by eye, but, those are the correct proportions. If you really want to be anal rettntive about it; you can build a plywood box that measures 12" x 12" x12" inside. Yes, according to the engineers the measure is one cubic foot.

If your buying bags of sand, rock or gravel at a home improvement store, you may as well buy the ready mix and just add water. As your not saving very much buying by the bags and mixing with cement. Notice they don't sell the cubic foot box anywhere.

If you buy a truck load of sand and rock and mix your own cement on site, its half the price of pre or redi mixed bags and you save the masons labor charge. That is assuming you don't live in a desert where rock is 500 miles away and more expensive to get. How much you save over ordering a load from a concrete company depends on the delivery charge. Most have a minimum delivery fee--here its $125 a truck whether the truck brings 1 yard or an entire load. So i have learned to mix on site.

If your mixing concrete for the shed floor in a wheel barrel, you will need helpers to spread, skreed and work the concrete, and trowel it. Working alone, it will begin to setup before you have mixed it all, let alone done the rest of the finish work. Working alone, Your option would be to do it in sections with expansion joints between or treated wood.

Today's mixers are poly and have taken out the cleanup work to just rinsing out with water. Even if you get behind, nothing sticks hard on the poly. You can tap it with a rubber mallet and off comes the hard stuff.

7 parts sand to 1 part portland cement is a real weak mix. I wouldn't lay any block or brick with it. Rain would erode it away over time, but in a dry climate it will work as good as adobe did for the indians.

Mark

Jet

if you don't need a whole lot of it, just go to the local hardware/home center and buy either "sand mix" which means you supply your own gravel or you can buy "concrete mix"... it has all three ingredients in it... just add water and mix. Both come in 80 lb bags and cost only pennies more than "cement".

Trouble i have following the recipe is it's alot easier to get a shovelful of sand then rock or cement. I don't like to open the bag too much and have the wind blow away the cement. So you have to watch your not adding too much sand. And gravel is twice the price of rock here so sometimes i end up with oversize rocks that throw off the ratio as well.

Mark

Not premixed bag cement you just add water to. The premixed stuff does vary in quality, it depends on the local plant. I've gotten crushed slate rock in some, others gravel and sand with cement. Just sand and cement is mortar mix not concrete. Mortar is used for brick wall and block joints.

If that mixer is the same one they have at this home depot, its a mortar mixer--not a concrete mixer. It'll take a lot of wheel barrows full to pour a small shed floor. One wheel barrel full will set 3 4x4 posts 3' deep. Double size hole 4" concrete around each post.

"A stone mason's joke: He's got a head like cement-all mixed up and set in one place.

I use a shovel, hoe, and a contractor's wheelbarrow. Had a small cement mixer one time and wasted a lot of time fooling around with it and the cleanup and all. Wheelbarrow works fine for me.

Add all the ingredients and mix good dry then make a depression in the center and add water. Be careful with the water as it creeps up on you. Think you don't have enough and next thing you know you have too much. Give it time and work it in. You'll be surprised at how nice a barrow full of crete you can make with your bare hands.

Mark

Gotta put up a barn too, and am thinking about concrete floor (real thick in a girdered hoist area), but am thinking of going 4' tall poured walls, then pole building on top of that, then back filling (building up) against the outside concrete walls with dirt. The thing that I'm concerned about is that old barns used a lot of huge fieldstone that didn't (still doesn't) get pushed inward annually by freezing ground. What's your thought on that.

On the poured wall, you"re getting into several things coming into play. One is forms which have to be stout to keep the wall from getting pot bellied before it cures. Secondly, the wall needs to be backbraced into the hill so that the force of the dirt doesn"t push it over. Then you need to be sure and wire it all together (rebar). Then there are holes in the crete that a vibrator would eliminate. And you are going to get mighty tired lifting all that crete up with a shovel to pour it into the forms. Not that you can"t/shouldn"t do it, just things to consider.

On the floor, you could section it off and pour 1 section at a time. Then you could do a little and rest a little.

It"ll take some carbohydrates so you may need a good supply of your beverage of choice. Seemed to help me in my strenuous projects.

Good Luck,

Mark

Mark