POURING CONCRETE STEPS : POURING A CONCRETE PATIO : PART 2

hey everybody mike here with everythingaboutconcrete.com in today's video we're going to be pouring concrete steps and we're going to be pouring a concrete patio so you get to watch us do both right on the same job now if you don't know me my name's mike day i own dave's concrete floors incorporated and this is my youtube channel where i teach you everything i know about concrete flat work we specialize in concrete floors patios slabs stamp concrete staining concrete we do a lot of concrete repair we even do a lot of epoxy floors so if those are the kinds of things you want to learn about then go ahead down there and hit subscribe now and also hit the little bell notification i'm coming out with a couple videos a week showing you guys and teaching you guys about all different kinds of concrete flat work so as you can see we're pouring the concrete in those stairs first and we we usually put it in there pretty dry we don't want to sag too much we'll vibrate it quite a bit so it'll vibrate all the little air pockets out that way when we go to finish these stairs you know we're going to strip all those boards off and we'll rub it all down with a sponge so so they come out really nice you'll see that at the end so hang out for the end of the video so you can see just how nice those stairs come out so we got enough concrete in the steps now and you know there's me and me and darren there working on the steps and luke is over there he's going to stop pouring the concrete patio we gave the concrete a little bit of a little bit of water we usually pour around a six inch slump we we put water reducer in the concrete so it keeps the water cement ratio real low which which helps keep it from cracking and allows us to pour it a little looser without hurting the concrete this is a 4000 psi mix and you can see we got a rebar mat in there for reinforcement so we're just waiting for the driver to mix the concrete up yeah now luke's luke's pouring that around now me and darren we're being quite fussy on these these concrete stairs we uh those risers have a 45 on that bottom head so we can get our mag right under them and get it right to the bottom of the riser we'll get it we'll get it really good we're pretty fussy on them and then we'll just leave it until they're ready to stop finishing but they do take a little bit of time these are six feet wide and as you can see there's four risers plus the patio if you've done concrete stairs before leave a comment down down below saying saying yes i've done stairs if you've never done concrete steps then leave a no in the comments and let me know if if you want to see more of these you know just tell me yeah i want to see more i want to learn more that way i know how to how to gear my videos and what to make in the future so we're just about done roughing in those steps darren will finish it up i'm going to go up and start magging the edges on that concrete patio i'm going to vibrate the edge first once we strip that board off that edge is going to be exposed so we want it nice and smooth that dewalt pencil vibrators man that thing's awesome i would highly recommend getting one i'll put a link down in the description for it it's it's kind of expensive but it pays for itself and the amount of labor it helps save you when you go strip those boards and you don't have to patch anything just vibrating that edge makes a difference so luke's getting the concrete poured out he's kind of a one-man one-man gang there i'm magging the edges we're just matching topper board and top of wall we're from maine as you can see there's still a little snow on the ground here so everything most everything we do has a frost wall under it goes down about four feet into the ground which is about as deep as the frost goes so you know we don't want the ground moving we don't want this stuff cracking yeah we're straight edging you can see we straight edged that first part right off top of the board and off top of the concrete wall i'm gonna finish vibrating the edges and that'll be it for that darren's magging the edge right flush we always mag our edges first i guess you don't have to you could do them after after you straight edge but we like to get all the rocks pushed down the cream brought up get them all filled in really nice before we straight edge that way when we go to bowl float the edges are really nice it just makes the finishing process that much easier we also kind of pull the straight edge back and forth we don't saw it we keep it on the back edge so we tip it just a little bit so it doesn't dig in and we let the guy who's kind of raking the concrete do most of work as you can see i'm going to finish that off we've been doing concrete together the three of us for almost almost 20 years i've been doing it 39 darren's been doing it about 22 23 and luke about 17 or 18 so we've been together a long long time darren's going to bullfold that we like the bull float with the rounded edges that'll be that'll be down in the description too guys a link for that that's a really good bull float it barely leaves any lines at all when you push it back and forth and you don't have to worry about working those lines out when you go to finish it really leaves the surface nice and smooth you can see we use the one we you push it down and then you lift it back up they have other heads where you just spin the handles and the bull float moves up and down and we have those two we just prefer that one we're a little old school guys we've been doing this a long time you can see my mag right now right now we're cutting the grooves in off that corner that inside corner that's where this thing's most likely to crack so we'll get those grooves cut in right there and when this does crack and it will hopefully it cracks right in those grooves and you won't even see the crack so this is probably about an hour later darren's taking that that brace off the concrete's stiff enough now so it's not going to sag it's not going to move that lets us get under it really good and and finish those steps off you got to take your time when you're finishing concrete stairs there's no real hurrying about it you can see i have a little six inch level there i'm making sure that those those steps they slightly slope downwards about an eighth of an inch we don't want them tipping backwards that way if it rains you know they'll just be puddling with water so we're pretty fussy about them them all sloping towards the front just a little bit you only have one chance to do these things right so it's take your time if they're not done right then you're jackhammer hammering them out we don't want to do that they're pretty easy to do right if you just take your time if it's if those stairs are a little level if they're level or if they're even tipped back a little bit you just need to scrape a little bit off the front of them just so they tip tip forwards that's what i'm doing i'll give you another tip guys see that little pocket thing in my back pocket it's called a pocket protector that holds my margin trial man that thing's a godsend you you uh you can hang your mag right off your margin trial and it doesn't really dig into you with that pocket protector i'll have a link for that down there guys you can check that out you know those things are only like six or seven bucks but it's it's something we use every single day so as you can see i'm checking and i'm double checking and i'm making sure these things are perfect even though when we form that up if you haven't seen the part one of this video where we did the foramen guys make sure to check that out after i'll have a video pop up at the end of this one where you can click over and watch how we form that up i mean we're pretty fussy when we form it up but even so even if you even if you think you installed the concrete perfectly you still want to check yourself yeah i'm scraping just a little bit off that what we do is when we scrape a little that cream off we'll save a little bit of it you can see that we put a couple little mounds of it up on that top patio up there that's nice creamy stuff to work with so when we strip the faces off those stairs you're always going to have a few little bug holes no matter how good you vibrate it we'll use that cream that we scraped up to fill those bug holes with so eventually when when this is ready we'll strip the two sides off this and we'll strip all those faces off the stairs and we'll rub those down with a sponge and make them look nice and neat you'll see that right at the end of the video and then we'll broom the tops of those stairs just like we're going to broom the tops of this patio so the patio is just about ready to start finishing we're going to mag the surface we always mag the surface first this will this will bring up a little bit finer cream it'll fill in any imperfections and it just makes it for a nice broom finish when you mag it first we don't steal trowel exterior concrete here in maine because our concrete's all air entrained which means it has tiny little air bubbles in it so when water does get on it and soaks into it and freezes those little air bubbles allow the water to the frozen water to expand inside it without popping the concrete and spalling it so if we steel trowelet right now instead of magnet the steel trowel seals that surface off and it will seal some of the moisture or it could seal some of the air that escapes under the surface of the concrete it'll cause a blister and that's just trouble so we mag it the magnet doesn't seal the surface off as much and then obviously when you pull that broom over it that helps open the surface back up too there's still there's a lot of moisture coming out of this even though you can't see it and you can't seal that moisture in there as you can see i'm just lightly pulling that broom back that's a concrete finishing broom leaves a nice light broom finish the guy pulling the broom back he just wants to go in one nice straight steady motion he doesn't want to stop he doesn't want to wiggle it otherwise that'll show up and then you want to finish off your groove mark and finish off your edges to give it a nice picture frame look that makes it look really nice hey guys again if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet i come out with these videos two to three times a week go ahead down there and hit subscribe now hit the little bell notification so you'll be updated every time i put out a new video yeah you can see i'm putting the finishing to mark on that groove well this is it guys this is how we pour concrete steps and how to pour a concrete patio not too bad once you once you learn how to do it it's pretty easy well we're gonna get ready to pull those pull those boards off unfortunately i didn't catch that in the video but i'll i'll show you the end product so this is the end product right here all the faces and sides have been rubbed out tops have been broomed so it's a nice clean look that's it guys that's the video thanks for watching i'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Mike Day Concrete

Views: 1,133,356

Keywords: pouring concrete steps, pouring concrete stairs, pouring a concrete patio, laying concrete stairs, concrete, diy concrete stairs, how to pour concrete steps, diy concrete steps, how to concrete, diy concrete, how to pour concrete, how to form concrete, concrete finishing techniques, concrete skills, concrete floor, concrete slab, how to, concrete tools, how to pour a concrete slab, how to pour a concrete patio, how to build concrete steps, how to form concrete stairs

Id: 1tQiZbt857U

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2019