DIY Concrete Slab - How to get started

hey guys welcome back if you stick around i'll share everything you need to know to do a concrete slab on your own all right so the very first step you're going to need to do before you dig up the ground build the forms buy the concrete you need to first figure out how much you're going to need how much is this going to cost and what size of concrete slab you're going to use so once you've laid out sort of where you want the concrete to go and how big the slab is just google concrete calculator you can easily find one of these free online you put the four inches thick that's the standard slab size for regular patios and slabs and then whatever dimensions you have this will give you a list of how many yards it's going to be if you order from a concrete company how many bags you're going to need if you order from lowe's or home depot or pick up the bags yourself this gives you everything you need to know now the next step you need to do is figure out if you're going to buy the individual bags mix it yourself or order a concrete truck delivering it already mixed ready to go now if you're ordering the bags i found that it's cheapest to buy the 60 pound bags it's cheapest per pound than the 80 pound or 40 pound bags that you can buy and if you buy the 60 pound bags it ends up being about the same exact price as ordering a concrete truck now there's an exception to this because most concrete companies will charge a small load charge depending on how much you order for example my concrete company that i was going to go through has a limit of four yards anything below that they tack on extra hundred dollars per yard which makes it much more expensive than the bad concrete so i actually planned to make this a little bit larger than i originally wanted just so then i could reach that four yard limit and order four yards so that i did not get penalized for the price now another thing to keep in mind is when the concrete companies are open ready to deliver now apparently there's a concrete shortage where i live and the concrete companies cannot keep up with the demand so they no longer deliver on saturdays in order to cut that down and i need to do this work on a saturday i don't want to have to take off work just to do this so i actually had to buy the bags individually mix them myself even though i already planned it to be four yards so i could get a concrete company deliver it here now next you need to start preparing the area where the concrete slabs are going so a trick that i use to make sure i'm grating it the right way everything's leaning away from the house so that you're planning for drainage is to put up strings along the perimeter of your concrete slab then you can easily take a level and run it on those strings to make sure that it's tipping away from the house away from your doorway so that when it rains water will drain away from the house and you won't have an issue with puddles building up now in larger slabs and things like driveways i find it is also helpful to run strings across the slab diagonal from opposite corners and have it crisscross to the middle that will also give you a sense of where it's tipping if you put a level on that now as far as elevation drop goes i typically do one inch every six to ten feet it really depends on how fast you want that water to drain off of the slab one inch every 10 feet is plenty for most rain water to drain off and not have any issues now once you have the strings in place everything is lined up where you want it to go now you can start digging out where the slab needs to go down make sure it's four inches below the string mark all the way around next you're going to be needing to build the forms and to do this a really easy way if you're making your slabs four inches thick is to use two by fours as the forms now these are really rugged they will support the weight of the concrete and not bow out you're also gonna be wanting to cut stakes about 16 inches to two feet and those will be hammered down into the ground they're going to be supporting the form holding it all together and what you're going to want to do is just cut a point off on one end so that hammers down into the ground a little bit easier i'm using whatever scrap wood i have laying around mostly two by fours and two by twos for those stakes it works really well to use up scraps that you have laying around if not you can just buy two by fours as well for those stakes now if you have your concrete slab running up to another slab already existing or your house you may want to put in sort of an expansion joint like i'm doing here i'm just using half inch plywood i'm using a cement nail gun to nail it to the house and hold it in place and that's going to be my guide on the back making sure that both sides of the slab are where they need to be this also gives room for the concrete to shift and expand when it gets cold and keeps it from causing any damage now once you've built the forms you can see now some places are lower than others and you need to fill some dirt in here so i'm actually going to be filling in a small layer of dirt in here and i'm going to use a tamper to tamp this down this will harden that soil a little bit and keep the concrete from settling and cracking and i'm also gonna do the same thing with another layer gravel i'll come back with the tamper and tamp this down try to compact this as much as possible [Music] another important step is to reinforce the concrete slabs that are going to be a supporting weight or vehicles are going to be driven across i'm going to be using this wire mesh made specifically for concrete slabs you can also use rebar or other forms of reinforcements now this does give a little bit more strength to the concrete slab but more importantly it will hold the slab together and stable make sure that it doesn't separate if any cracks do happen [Music] so so you also want to make sure that you backfill your forms this will help support the forms from the weight of the concrete but it'll also keep the concrete from rushing out underneath your form and blowing out now in order to control cracking on larger slabs like this you're going to want to add in expansion joints either before you pour like i am here or using a concrete saw and cutting controlled cracks across dividing it up after it has hardened another tip if you go around the outside of the forms and cut off all the stakes that are sticking above the forms before you start pouring it's going to save you a lot of frustration and make it a lot easier now if you've decided to go with bag concrete instead of a concrete truck delivery i've got a few tips for you to make it go a little bit smoother first is having a cement mixer if you're doing any more than probably 20 bags of concrete you're going to want a cement mixer it makes it go a lot faster that way it doesn't harden before you have a chance to smooth it out and get all the bags mixed also it's going to make it go a lot faster and save a ton of work at the same time so you can either find a cement mixer new buy that if you're going to be doing a ton of cement work or you can buy used on facebook marketplace craigslist somewhere like that that's where i found mine for 75 or you can rent it per day for a smaller amount as well now the next tip is depending on how much you get you may want to consider getting the bags of concrete delivered instead of picking them up at the store it would have taken me at least eight or nine loads with my truck to bring it to the house for five full skids of concrete and this way i didn't have to load it or unload it saved a lot of work and they only charge me fifty dollars to have five skids delivered to my house now the next tip is if you do have someone available that could help you at least get one other person there to help with this project we're doing four yards and in my opinion it's not possible for one person to do that many in one day i have done almost two yards myself in one day and that just about killed me trying to keep up with it making sure i got it all poured before it started setting up and hardening so i could smooth it out and get everything done it was all day thing having two people makes it go a lot faster and it makes pouring four yards of concrete bags possible now as i'm pouring any sections where we have the reinforcement wire mesh in the slab i'm actually going through with a hook and i'm lifting this up and making sure it's in the center of the slab instead of all the way at the bottom if it's at the bottom it's not going to be strengthening the slab like it needs to it could easily just break off if there's any stress the center will give it the maximum strength and hold everything together now the rest i'm just going to speed really quickly through the process of smoothing this out i'm going to use a bull float to smooth out the initial pass i'm going to come back several times as this is starting to cure and dry up i'm going to be smoothing out the top now i'm also going to be coming around with a magnesium trowel as well and smoothing out any sections where the build float did not reach and i'm also going to be coming back with an edger as it starts to set up i'm going to be edging around each of these concrete slabs and this makes it just really nice around the outside and gives a nice smooth edge around the whole slab now there's one more slab that we're pouring the same day as the rest this one's coming off of the driveway in the front yard i want to eventually connect the driveway with the garage and that slab i just poured in the back but this is a start i'm gonna move my way down in order to reach the four yard minimum we had to add in this slab as well which i was planning on already doing [Music] eventually [Music] [Music] all right so i'm just about finished up with these concrete slabs i hope this was helpful for you i was really focusing more on the preparation and how to plan and know what to expect with setting up a concrete pour like this more so than just pouring the slab and finishing it there's a lot of prep that goes into these slabs and i haven't seen many videos that cover that so i was hoping that this would be helpful for someone if it was hit the like button down below and let me know in the comment section now this is two days later the concrete has set up it's still very green i'm not gonna take the forms off i'm walking on this very softly i actually took off my shoes so i don't make any scuff marks in the surface of the concrete it definitely is hard enough for it to support my weight but i'm still going to be very careful i'm not actually going to take the forms off until seven days after the pour you can see here it's already set up the surface is hardening but there's still a little bit of a discoloration that's actually going to go away once it has fully cured and you won't even see that later on now it's been seven days the concrete is definitely hard enough to start using it now so i'm going to take the forms off this will continue to harden over time you still want to be careful it's not at its max strength yet but i'm going to carefully take the forms off and take the stakes out i'm going to start using some of the dirt that i've dug out of here to fill in around the forms where i pulled those out and around the concrete slab and now i need to come back in and seed and hay all of this i'm going to show you what this looks like in a month from now and it looks so much nicer once i get the grass in here obviously now if you guys are interested in learning more about how to finish and pour the concrete slabs i've got two other concrete slab videos that i've made those go into definitely more depth on how to pour and how to smooth it out and finish it so if you guys are interested in those i'll leave the link at the end of this video all right so this is one month later the grass has come in really nicely there's a few spots that red clay has stained the concrete slab i've got a pressure washer i'm planning on coming out here and spraying that off and cleaning it up soon but looks great turned out really nice so i hope you guys have enjoyed this video if it was helpful at all let me know down in the comment section also please give this video a like and don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you have not already thanks so much for watching i'll see you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: SimonSaysDIY

Views: 125,928

Keywords: All you need to know to build a concrete slab, concrete truck vs bags, should I use concrete bags or concrete truck, how to make a concrete slab, how to make a cement slab, concrete slab tips and tricks, how to prep for a concrete slab, all you need to know concrete slab, DIY concrete slab, diy concrete patio, diy patio, how to make cement patio, diy cement patio, diy concrete, How to get started with a DIY concrete Slab, how to build a concrete slab, how to pour a patio

Id: Pbyhf0Z8JEQ

Length: 14min 25sec (865 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021