DRY POUR CONCRETE (YES OR NO)? Mike Haduck

today I'm going to do a video on dry pour concrete now I'm getting a lot of comments people are writing in Mike when are you going to do a video on dry pork concrete I went on the internet they watched some of these videos I'm going to do mine from my own Angle now I have over 50 years experience in the masonry business I also worked in the union out New Jersey on top of skyscrapers and I'm porn warehouses and in little jobs like you see on on my channel and it's going to be yes or no 98 is going to be no I'm gonna do my little experiments and expect you to do your own experiments I'm going to show you why and at the end I'll give you my two percent of when you could use it but 98 no so here we go now the first thing we're going to do if we're going to do this is we're going to do the smart thing and look at the directions I already did a video on this to traditionally called Quikrete concrete mix review Etc Mike haddock so now we're looking at it and it says Just Add Water for setting posts sidewalks four thousand pounds PSI typical compressive strength it's for steps floors patios and footings and exceeds the compressor strength requirements of astmc 387 that's the American Standard of testing materials C is masonry and they just make these numbers up so that's just about it as 80 pounds on it now look look at the back now we're looking at the back you can see it right there can be hand mixed or machine mixed at approximately six pints of portable water for each 80 pound bag Mix Concrete thoroughly if the material becomes too difficult to mix add small watt amounts of clean water until a workable mix is obtained and then it goes into the slump which you don't need to do and then it talks about the post you could do the post now when you're doing post you can just throw it in dry like they're talking about because it's in a hole and nature itself will hold it but the old timers would never use cement they just put stones around the post then when it rotted away they just pull the post out and put new stones in it now when you're mixing a slab it said sidewalks and patios should be at least three and a half inches thick four rectangular slabs construct the forms of two by four forms dampen the forms and baste early a lot of guys will just use basic uh you know some type of oil mix concrete and shoveled into the form completely fit in the form deeply and approximately so it said mix the concrete and this is uh cut the concrete away and all that stuff and then down in here it tells you about the curing process so read that for yourself and then let's go from there now one thing you should know is when you're buying this stuff you got to go and you gotta punch the bag and see if it's soft because this will harden naturally right inside the bag without any water and what I do is if I get it I make sure that it's soft I take it home and I put it in a plastic bag because within one or two months it'll get hard by itself now down in Florida all they do is take these kind of bags and they stack them around water pipes instead of using stone or concrete and they just let them sit let's look at it at an example of that so let's look at what this is made out of all this is is cement bags see it you can see it's still a bag right there all they did was pile them up one on top of another and I was talking to uh the guy from the municipality who put them here and said all it is to stop erosion and keep the keep the land back from the drainage well you got to ask the question how long is this retaining wall going to last well there's the bag and I talked to one of the guys and he said it's been here a couple years and already it's falling apart so a lot of times they put retaining walls in but they don't tell you how long you're going to last for so here's another one of those drains and it's a quick cheap Fast Fix now you're going to ask what did we learn from that anytime you let this cement lay around it's going to get hard whether you put water in it or not any first year Mason or someone who works in this kind of construction business will know that right off they'll always tell you make sure you don't get the hard stuff and in some people like these box stores when they don't use it they'll bring it back it'll be harder still so make sure it's soft another thing about this product is I don't think they make it strong enough for my area and another thing you got to know about when you're pouring concrete what works in Pennsylvania does it work in Florida what works in Florida it doesn't work in Alaska and what works in Alaska does not work in Southern California it's all different the old days the Masons would make their own mix this is like a new school thing that's for the little guy or you're just doing small mixes so now let's mix it up and see what happens now I made two similar forms here and the one I'm just gonna take it out of the package [Music] and we're trying to do is get the rocks if you want to tap the forms a little bit so it kind of settles in there and then they get their little edger and put it through so now it's fair nothing to brag about the rocks are not down and anybody who knows concrete so you gotta put the juice over there to get it so it's kind of a what you call a way of doing it let's put it if you're a professional machine way you do it it's got a soft brush like that I'll tell you that right now it's kind of cheap looking years ago when you started they first started putting concrete sidewalks in this was not acceptable you because all the stores all the sidewalks were made out of of uh Stone and this was considered a cheap way of doing things and it is very cheap I could see it doesn't wanna cover the stones I'm going to talk more about the stones as we go now on this other side I'm just gonna take some here put it in like this can we get enough of the pan we just start adding water conditional where to do this one way one reason you do it this way is because if you don't wet anything don't stick and you're going faster you're doing stucco you gotta wait what you're pulling first I have a whole video on that oh should I win it first that's pretty good that's what you call like a four inch slump so we're not going to worry about the forms we're just going to put it in like this [Music] and you put it in you gotta shake it down on the sides so it really gets in there see the air bubbles coming up that is how you get all that stuff out of the sides but a lot of people don't understand about concrete it's a time thing you just don't put it in and then all of a sudden finish it you have to wait until the exact right time so there we got it in when you're doing concrete you do this because what you want is you want the rocks to head towards the bottom that's what you want the rocks to go down to the bottom here that's not going to happen they're going to stay up on top so you can still see the bubbles the air bubbles coming out now that's a pretty good mix so now the whole thing is we're just going to let this sit because it's not time to be finished and we're just going to take our edger this will be our first pass all right our first pass is we want to get the Rocks away from the form so now all we're going to do with this side is get the sprayer and wet it and I noticed one of the guys that was a professional trying to trawl it in and there's a reason he's trying to trowel it in because the rocks are showing already so if you don't think the rocks are going to show already in this product it does now we're going to wet it really good and let it get down in there what the rocks are showing that's that's what you call it a cheap finish I'm Gonna Keep wetting it no customer mine would ever accept that as a finish I've been doing this since 1969. my dad was doing it since the late 40s early 50s and I was born in the early 50s and uh you can't do this for a customer sucking the water in though so I got a little bit of puddling still sinking down in there and I'm thinking maybe it won't puddle maybe the water will go right through I don't know it's a real way to do it though I'll tell you that there it is putting a little bit saturated Goodwood water okay we're gonna let the water sit on this and we're going to come back in an hour or two and wet it again so it's about 20 minutes later the cedar water comes from the top with Portland all right so we want to kind of do it again see how it sticks there we kind of want to do it again this is how you do concrete then you get everything flush and everything's good and it brings up the juice you see the juice in there that's where you want the water coming to the top this is the traditional way to pour concrete I can just use a trowel like this and then I go over it again it's only 20 minutes later now the concrete is still setting you see what people don't understand about concrete is it's a time thing you don't do it all at once you do it on it as it's ready and you could always take this scrape up a little juice throw your edges in that's how you pour concrete say okay that's the second time around this is the professional way to do it when you knock your high spots down and then you leave it sit again so This Is 40 minutes later and when you're pouring this kind of concrete you look for the sheen see the water is kind of off of it so it's ready for its third go over now this is the other stuff I don't know if they ever showed you a close-up of it but that's a really really cheap job I'm uh I could never do that for someone so now this one we're gonna use what they call a float and you float it you see that it don't take a lot or [Music] you can get a brush and give it the broom finish now look at the difference there look at that difference and look at this difference what difference would your customer accept that's the way I'm doing it so it's an hour later and you can see from the second time the sheen the water is still on there so that's not ready yet but we're gonna go over here and look at this and we're going to give that another coat of water so this is in the shade don't forget we're in the shade and it's about 60 degrees out now if it's a summertime it's going to go a lot lot faster than this we're going to keep this hydrated the other stuff already has the water in it so you don't have to worry about it so the water the sheen is pretty much got now that's ready for finishing see that that's old school finishing see that's still a hair wet so every time you're doing concrete it's a time thing it could actually go a little bit longer but it don't hurt you got to keep your tools clean don't hurt a broom finish just what it is a broom finish and some guys when they're finished concrete can make designs in it like they could do circles in it like circles see that you ever see them do that can't do it with stuff like this it's a cheap job that's pretty much finished I want to do one side like that and scrape the other side it doesn't matter it's only concrete that's why they tell you to mix it you can't do anything with that finish and you can do something with this finish so that's it we're just going to leave it like that go from there well it's three hours later and you can see how nice and professional that looks and how cheap and unprofessional this looks but we're gonna wet it one more time and you can see the stones coming through and one of the guys I watched did a little thing on the videos it was a very professional and he was trying to get a finish on it by adding some more stuff and he couldn't get it that's why he didn't try it but this is not the way to do it as a matter of fact it's kind of looking pretty bad so what I'm going to do is just cover this we're going to let it sit for five days and that'll be that I'm just gonna cover it up so here we are two days later I'm gonna take the forms off and look at this take a good look at it I want everybody to see it and look at this so we're gonna let it sit for a while [Music] you can see already that's that topic gonna uh hold okay we're taking the forms off and we're gonna let it take the forms off like this and we're gonna let it sit for a while and see it's still green it's still soft here concrete is soft at least for a day see what this looks like it looks a little weaker already well we're going to talk about it more so we're gonna let this sit for a couple days and then we're gonna go from there see it's still wet okay seven days later look at this that's the Finish you get oh sand is falling off of it all the rocks are showing it and it's uneven because the water sank in there and pulled some of it down this one so if you're a professional or you're a homeowner and you get one of these things look at a sand coming off it which one would you accept the wire brush test look at that the top is coming right off of it this one nothing so so what do you think so far now let's do the crack test all right look at it it's all crumbling seven days later let's do this one this one pretty solid that cheap one it's all falling apart this one's pretty solid and you could still see inside it's just a little bit green so we know we know which one is better already okay let's do the crush test now we're gonna do the crush test this is the one with the water like you're supposed to do it all right this is the dry pour do the test for yourself if you don't believe me now let's take a look at our weather in northeastern Pennsylvania in the winter time it's 34 and 30 39 19 it's snowing it's raining 40 then it's 27 39 it's a freeze and thaw cycle continuously so now because I said that let's give it the freezer test now we're gonna do the freezer test we're just going to fill this up with water on both sides and then we're going to put it in the freezer and see what happens so that's it it's in the freezer and we'll take it out back and forth and see what happens now we're going to let it unfreeze all right you're gonna have to trust me on this one but I took it out of the freezer all right I was on the freezer for uh seven days four to five times a day sometimes I just missed it and uh I'm gonna prove it to you get yourself do it yourself this one's good and this one which I brought out is all Fallen apart it did not pass the freeze test all right this is northeast Pennsylvania see it all falling apart this one no way so it did not pass the freeze test let's do a little scraping here see it's all falling apart here that one's tough so it did not pass the freestyle now let's look at why this is the good part where you mix the water in it and this is the part where we just laid it all dry this is why that this is falling apart the old piece when you see the Rocks right here they cracked right through when I cracked a stone they cracked right through but not here the rocks are showing see these rocks showing and see the holes in here because this did not knit properly this is a lot stronger uh when you add the water then when you just put it all dry and it does it does not stick to the stone first thing you learn to masonry if you want some into stick you gotta wet it first that's why they put it in the concrete truck and they wet it and it all jives together but here it's not sticking and that's why in the freezer this part is falling apart now I have a video out it's called industrial concrete rebar forming and testing and when I was doing Union work and even my own government work they line the trucks up we have the Pumpers we'd have to put it in a certain thing and then we would have to vibrate it but the big deal is they test it even before it would go in to the job they have air tests and they have slump tests and then they take and they put it into canisters and they test it 30 days later so concrete you just can't get a bag of concrete throw it down and wet it this is all serious work because you get into a lot of lawsuits if you don't do it correctly and everything don't measure up especially on slopes like this then you have to get out and you have to finish it properly you can't do a dry mix in professional concrete work so I'm going to talk about this a little bit and then we're going to do it all over again another experiment we're going to try to do a flat finish or a smooth finish anyway back in the old days when you ordered concrete from a concrete company back in the 60s and the 70s you call up and you'd say I want a one two three mix what's that that's one part Portland two-part sand and three part gravel sometimes you call up you want a little stronger you want a one two two mix that'll be one part Portland two sand two uh gravel or you'd want pea gravel now it's called one bead and keep changing the names to everything sometimes you call up by down to one one one mix that's a real strong mix because all the Masons are all the contractors will want a certain thing for the certain area where they lived what works in Pennsylvania does it work in Alaska what works Alaska doesn't work in Florida what works in Florida doesn't work in California it's all different but now they put it in a bag and then they'll have on it well this is a 4 000 pound mix or a 3 000 pound mix or 3 500 pound mix and today you call it the concrete company instead of sale one two three you say I want a three thousand pound mix or a four thousand pound mix depending on what you're doing now when I give you this bag concrete it says under four thousand pounds so if you take this and you add the water to it correctly like the directions and you take it to a Testing Lab they're going to put it in a crush you're going to test it to see if it's four thousand pounds per square inch of pressure that ain't gonna pass and if I did that and try to do it commercially I'd get sued there's one time that uh I did this concrete driveway which I'm against but somebody out it was a guy who drove tractor trailers and he didn't want blacktop because they're sink in the blacktop so I ported poured a concrete driveway it was 12 by 20. and uh they call me up and they're complaining because it spoiled so the concrete company got a professional up there to look at it and he was an inspector that's all he did was inspect concrete now the owner was blaming the concrete company the concrete company was blaming me but they tested it they found out that I didn't add water to the top like you're not supposed to there's the correct amount of water in it was the concrete company's fault it gave me bad concrete sometimes they don't add enough Portland sometimes what happens they'll give you a Hot Load it's sitting in a truck for an hour before to even deliver it and it's already drying so when you do concrete you really got to know what you're doing I did a video on the same stuff we used this in this is from a year ago all right I mixed it correctly the way the directions told you to mix it if you don't mix it the way the directions tell you to mix it then you're going to be liable for it so I did another one like this a smooth finish concrete if you want to continue but I'm telling you 98 no and I'll tell you two percent where I think it's okay I'm gonna do this experiment one more time do it a different way because uh for me it's a very cheesy way of doing things I don't know why people just don't want to do it the right way oh so we're gonna do it again [Music] when you pour concrete you gotta do a smooth finish first of all all the Rocks ain't sink it to the bottom because you can't do it that way it just doesn't work so here it is again right now suppose you have to do a smooth finish thing on a driveway how do you do it how do you do it and how do you get away with it now this is a professional broom right that's a professional broom you would use so we're gonna do it again someone's gonna say it and do it right I already could see the sand coming up very cheesy way of doing it very unprofessional and this side will be flat how you guys how can you go to a customer and leave these rocks sticking up here I don't understand that and then you're gonna miss it again very lightly look at that the rocks are starting to come up already very lightly I missed in it so what are what what's what are they trying to tell you here what's going on this side over here suppose you want a smooth finish what are you supposed to do you got to fill in the holes you can't leave gaps you want a smooth finish are you going to get a smooth finish out of that that's why they tell you mix it thoroughly no concrete contractor is gonna fill the whole thing up with concrete and then try to smooth finish it like this totally ridiculous let's go try the other side so you can't get the Rocks down very very unprofessional I'm going to tell you something I worked on swimming pools when I did swimming pool bottoms we still mixed it it was a drier mix but you still mixed it got holes in here you see that when you're doing professional concrete you have to fill all the holes in that's why you you swirl it like this and it gets the holes in there's nothing to squirrel with that's why it's not professional so we'll wet it again like they did and it's it's the rocks are showing Cedar Rock shown if they're telling you to rock sink on a shoulder lying to you and it's bent in other words when concrete swells when you're doing it that's why you got to go over it a bunch of times because when it swells and it's not even it's not straight across see I don't know if you can see it see the holes in there the gaps that's why you keep going over it and this you can't do it let's do they troll me right off the job if I did something like that especially if you're doing a government or a a union job it's not acceptable you can see that the water's actually laying on that part look at how the rocks are showing I don't die they're lying to you if they tell you the Rocks ain't gonna show it's a very uh not the right way to do things that's why they say mix it add the water and mix it it's the third day and I've taken off the wood here and we're going to look at this it's Sandy and it's falling off and let's look at the smooth finish it's not smooth and it's showing all the rocks very unprofessional finish now when we're looking at when we're looking at this look that's straight that's a good finish that is professional finish this is not a big professional finish see it's moving it's got holes underneath it that's what holds the water that's why that's not good so I went a little farther with it but you personally have to do your own test you know if you want to tell me something and I did wrong I want to see you do your own test anyway 98 know and the only time I'd say two percent is suppose you you want to be an amateur all your life and you don't want to do a professional and you don't want to take the chance of finishing it maybe you have a big wood pile outside your house and you don't want termites so you form it you bag it in like that and you drop the wood on where no one's going to see it that's a two percent I'd say you're okay now when I worked I worked on skyscare scrapers I worked on warehouses where they'd pour for 100 yards at a time uh they had the skyscrapers have cranes dropping the stuff in and no matter whether you're working on a big skyscraper or you're doing a little driveway or something every Mason is going to want to start or do it a different way or doofen different angle so I'll leave you with this and my dad was in it uh uh a little skit and uh thanks for watching I'm Mike haddock I'll see you next video key lock going all the way up and all the way this way then screed it and then float it the other Mason says something different doesn't matter whether you've broom finish it or floated I just like to put in the cut Parts I told these guys they're pouring it the wrong way they should afford the top first that's all going to run down this hill and that's all I have to say about that wait we're gonna do this is we're gonna pour it we're gonna broom it and then we're gonna cut it with the sauce I've been pouring concrete for 70 years you hippies don't know what the hell you're doing here I don't care which way they pour it as long as they buy a used car or truck from honest Mike's Auto Sales [Music]

Channel: Mike Haduck Masonry

Views: 91,540

Keywords: DRY POUR CONCRETE, dry pour concrete, what is dry pour concrete, is dry pour concrete good, Mike Haduck, mike haduck masonry, mike haddock

Id: 2F_3GrGFenU

Length: 34min 11sec (2051 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023