Small Concrete Slab Project | Less than $200!

Alright guys, welcome back to the show. It is going to be about 70 degrees today and then after today the next 15 days I think the high is like in the 50s so we're gonna start getting colder. So I've got all these bags of concrete over on the other side of the house that I bought to pour a pad out here out this back door and then two pads for my air conditioners. So I know you guys are all eager for me to get back inside the house but this is part of the build process when you're doing it yourself. You gotta do things when the weather allows or doesn't allow and so I'm going to take you through how to pour your own cement pad and I'm going to do it all with a mixer and bag concrete just because it's back behind the house and if I got a cement truck I'd have to get a buggy, I'd have to pay a small load charge. So I've done a lot of these small pads over some last projects so I bought myself a small electric mixer and for things like this I always do do this. My concrete is going to come up to right here so I need to take a couple inches of this dirt out so I can get some gravel in there. So that's the first step and one way that I found that makes that easier is I just take a rotor tiller and just skim the top and then I can take a little dirt off at a time and that makes digging a lot easier. So that's we're going to do first we're going to get a little dirt off here and then we'll bring gravel in and we'll set our forms and pour the concrete. So the next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to set this outside board and I want to slope away from the house obviously and I could easily use my transit but since most people aren't going to have that I'm just going to use a level and show you how I do it using the level. We'll just I know where I want the concrete height on that way and I'll just make sure I have a slope with my level out to this outside board. So I'm going to go ahead and set this board and then I'll compact that bring my rock in compact it again and then I'll set my end form and we'll get started. So the dirt compacted rock brought in I got that compacted I got it pretty close so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to set this end board. So I'll get this end board set across make sure I got enough rock in there and then I'll cut my other board and kind of make sure just kind of screed across making sure I'm nice and level I mean not necessary but I want to be as close as possible and then I'm going to leave this end open until so I can so I can take that in there and kind of dump and work my way back this way once I get to the end I can put my board in. So I'm gonna go cut some boards and then we'll put that one in make sure this level probably compact it one more time once I get it there's a couple low spots I can tell. I got my rebar in there and I got it tied together with ties stayed about two foot on center that's what how much I had left and that should give it some good strength and hold it all together not necessary on something like this but it definitely will make it a lot stronger so and I'm getting rid of stuff which I'm super excited about. A couple reasons I'm doing this is one I needed to get it done two I bought all this concrete I don't know probably a month ago with the thought that I was going to get it done and we've had some rains and although I've had it covered with the tarp humidity will make this bad concrete start to harden so I need to use it up I need to get rid of it the rebars has been laying around since I poured the concrete in the house so I need to get rid of that and it'll feel good good to get it done I'm going to move my grill back here because this is the kitchen we're using we're using the garage is our living space so it'll be nice to have the grill out here and whatnot so I'm already got all my bags I think it's going to take 32 bags this is a 10 by 5 foot slab three and a half inches thick and that's roughly 32 60 pound bags and these bags they're like three bucks a piece three four bucks a piece so you can see how you can do this pretty cheaply and that's why I'm doing it this way so all right this is the concrete I'm using it's a quickcrete product I got it at fleet farm it's 4 000 psi there's a compressive strength so it's pretty strong stuff roughly two quarts of water per bag don't exceed uh three and a half quarts so I'm gonna start at that end and I'm just gonna work my way back this way and I'll kind of trowel it float it and trowel it and as I go so I'll have time while the concrete's mixing up but uh I guess let's get going all right guys we got it all poured took me about an hour and 40 minutes to pour this and let's see I had 32 bags I used 20 20 and a half bags of concrete and so I'm going to edge it starting to set up down here so I'm going to get to this edge I'll work the first time and then I'm going to put a relief cut right here and I'm just using that edger which with a v in the middle of it to do that I'm not sure if I can reach all the way but I can go inside and finish it if I need to and then once it sets up enough I'll lightly broom it and then we'll re-edge it and it'll be done so I'm just going to use a regular little small broom to broom it because I figured that's what most people would be using and it works really good so all right so one thing to consider when you're pouring a slab like this is because of the length of time it takes to pour the slab the concrete that you poured first is going to start setting up first so you just have to give yourself time to just slowly work across the pad getting it the edges worked and it brushed and whenever I do a pad like this I try to do it so when I'm pouring it I'm in the shade so the sun doesn't speed the curing process up faster than normal so right here you can see that I'm just using a broom from the house to lightly brush the concrete and the purpose of that is to roughen the surface just enough that you have some traction if it was wet and it also gives it a pretty cool look once you edge it they actually call this picture framing in the concrete world and it's something I like to do on all of my pads now that you have it brushed you just have to go back over and work the edges with your edger and if you ever have problems with not being able to get the rocks to settle down into the concrete you can always take some of the mix and sift off some of the portland and just spread that portland on that edge that you're edging and you get a nice finish I've done that in the past when I've had trouble maybe it's setting up too fast or you just have an area where the rocks aren't settling down in the concrete so that's one trick that I've used in the past and it actually works out pretty well so now that I have it brushed and edged it's pretty much a done deal and you just have to wait for it to cure and then you can take your forms off I got a nice slope away from the house so anyway that is how you pour your own concrete slab if you're asking yourself I don't have a compactor they sell hand compactors for under $30 that you can get and for this size of thing tamping that by hand isn't a isn't a problem and before I had one I would actually take a two by four and then take a piece of like a two by six and screw it to the bottom and use that to tamp so there's ways around that especially on things this size you don't need it I have that compactor so I use it but I did I've done a lot of these over the years without that and they've turned out great so I'm gonna pour two concrete pads for my AC units and then I'll be done back here so I'm pretty excited about that what do you think of your first concrete pad did pretty good huh think you're as good as daddy say something was that fun huh I love you all right let's clean all right guys well that is pretty much a wrap I just got to wait for these two AC pads to set up and I'll do my final smooth over on them and trowel on them and then we'll be done that's a pretty good day all right I appreciate everybody watching hopefully you guys are all getting something out of this that's the whole point of this and we really appreciate you guys watching and we'll catch you on the next video