Looking for advice on building a concrete slab

-

Kern Dog

Build your car to handle.
FABO Gold Member
Joined
May 23, 2010
Messages
9,805
Reaction score
28,224
Location
Granite Bay CA
Sooo I looked on YouTube to see what helpful videos they might have. I'm a Carpenter by trade but I have little experience with concrete.
LOTS of helpful videos and then there was THIS one:
 
All my deceased relative concrete professionals are laughin' their asses off at this video and I'm only 4 minutes into it. I can feel it. :rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
I just built a 12x20 slab for CHEAP using all this guys tricks! I’ll be using the slab to install an outdoor 2 post lift. I forgot to add anchor bolts to bolt down the lift but that’s why they make those blue tap cons right?
 
I was a concrete carpenter for 8 years and if I did that I would be fired on the spot . First : never pour concrete over grass or dirt . remove sod down to substrate . Put down sand and pack it down , set rebar or wire 1/2 way down . Make sure forms are secure Call for mix with fibers to add strength Get 3500 lb.test or better Stay with it until it sets. Strip form after 12 hours Takes 5 days to cure. You can add anchor bolts at the pour or use Tap-Cons after . Good luck
 
I was a concrete carpenter for 8 years and if I did that I would be fired on the spot . First : never pour concrete over grass or dirt . remove sod down to substrate . Put down sand and pack it down , set rebar or wire 1/2 way down . Make sure forms are secure Call for mix with fibers to add strength Get 3500 lb.test or better Stay with it until it sets. Strip form after 12 hours Takes 5 days to cure. You can add anchor bolts at the pour or use Tap-Cons after . Good luck
Didn’t watch the whole video, did you?

It was a JOKE that was revealed at the end.

Read my sig.
 
Didn’t watch the whole video, did you?

It was a JOKE that was revealed at the end.

Read my sig.

I had to watch it through to the end :rofl: Just to see what other ridiculous **** he could come up with :rofl:The comments about the concrete pumpers running around with "a hopper full" of concrete. Good thing I didn't have a cocktail or I might have ejected Vodka through my nose laughing :rofl:
 
I had watched the video a few weeks ago and at first I was like “this guys an idiot!” Then the longer I watched, the more the satire revealed itself. Lol
 
I operated a concrete pump very similar to the one in the video when I was at SLC6 at Vandenberg AFB. No **** .. It's given name was Putzmeister and built by Schwing. My supervisors were really jazzed when California Builder and Engineer Magazine came out to do an article on the Shuttle Launch Complex. They took rolls and rolls of film. On the cover of that month's issue, there I was in my railroad striped bib overalls, hard hat, ZZ Top cheap sunglasses, remote control for the pump boom hanging around my neck, and standing on top of the cab pumping concrete. Superintendent calls me to the office when he got his copy. He just shook his head and laughed ":wtf: were you thinkin'?" he said. "Craig they were down in a hole and it was the only place I could watch them from.":lol:
 
Funny as ****, saw it last week searching reno videos.
"That's why 2x4's are 12' so you can put the stake in the middle at 6'" lmao.
If anyone thought this was meant to be serious....oh boy.
 
IDK a thing about concrete, except to let the pros handle it......
And my pad still got hairline cracks
even with extra Re-bar, a lil thicker slab than necessary, stronger than necessary cement, controlled curing, and in-floor heat installed before cooling outside temperatures hit..
IDK a thing about it except the hairline spider cracks are ugly.
 
IDK a thing about concrete, except to let the pros handle it......
And my pad still got hairline cracks
even with extra Re-bar, a lil thicker slab than necessary, stronger than necessary cement, controlled curing, and in-floor heat installed before cooling outside temperatures hit..
IDK a thing about it except the hairline spider cracks are ugly.
I had a concrete driver tell me this a few years back. “There’s 2 kinds of concrete. Concrete that’s cracked and concrete that not cracked....yet.”
 
I had a concrete driver tell me this a few years back. “There’s 2 kinds of concrete. Concrete that’s cracked and concrete that not cracked....yet.”

Best you can hope for is having it crack where you want it to crack. Expansion joints help but are not pleasing to the eye. Smaller areas crack less in a destructive manner, less tendency to crack all the way through. Surface cracks, they're gonna happen regardless.
 
My garage floor is 22x24 and was cut in 1/4's but still cracked. I suppose Canadian winter's don't help either. 4" in the middle and 12" in the perimeter with re-bar and air entrained etc etc etc.
 
My garage floor is 22x24 and was cut in 1/4's but still cracked. I suppose Canadian winter's don't help either. 4" in the middle and 12" in the perimeter with re-bar and air entrained etc etc etc.
Best bet is probably to wait till it cures and cracks then epoxy coat it.
 
-
Back
Top