Pouring A Small Concrete Slab Almost Killed Me
g'day mates today we're on the hunt but i do want to be quiet because there's lots of spitting cobras out here spitting llamas too crikey mates there it is the perfect spot for many concrete slab today guys i'm going to show you how easy it is to pour your own concrete slab or foundation this foundation is actually going to be pretty interesting because it's going to be circular and it's going to go right where this flower pot is [Music] i'm gonna go i'm gonna go about this a little bit different than normal for a small slab because generally what you would use is a two by four that's probably what you've seen done before but for me i'm gonna be using osb because the slab i'm gonna be pouring is round and i need flexibility i also need some sunglasses you don't have to do this next part but i want to make sure that this circle is as perfect as can be so what i've done is just put a screw into an old uh scrap piece of 2×4 and i'm going to set that on the ground swing around right to there okay so now i'm just going to take my tape measure and 55 inches is the diameter of the circle so 27 and a half i'm going to hook tape on there i'm going to come out to 27 and a half yep 55 inches just like it's supposed to be so now the next thing is i've got to figure out what the circumference of this is and if you remember your math correctly the way you figure out circumference is pi times diameter i don't [Music] after finally figuring out how to multiply 55 inches times pi i cut four pieces of osb down to three and a half inches tall now i'll use those dimensions for my circumference to cut these to length because it's going to take two of them to go around one time and then it's going to take two of them to double it around with in which case i've figured out the circumference of 56 inches times pi but guess what this osb even though it's more flexible than a 2×4 yeah still not very bendy so what i'm going to have to do is cut slots in this and put kerf reliefs using my chop saw [Music] [Applause] [Music] much more bendy now of course actually is that a band does that count as a bend i don't know is that a bend i cut a little too far on that cut right there a little too deep oh well we'll make it work now you can see why i drew this circle out to begin with because we're going to take the pieces of osb and this will help us make sure that we stay in a perfect circle as we go around our outline okay ready beautiful put it put it right in the thick part there see how there's a thicker part right there yep keep going keep going okay now do this one there you go oh sorry don't put your finger on the other side of the screw funny thing is that that's the only time i think pretty much every other screw i made sure that my finger was not behind in case that happened that's the only one i did that on and that's the only screw that went through magic now i carry this whole thing around to the front yard whoa it is hot out today but before i can lay this down and clear out for it we do have one issue yep that pot right there is exactly where this has to go so madison if you want to slide that pot out of the way watch your toes they've got the mulch kind of moved out of the way and i'm just going to get some of this dirt out of here too this will just kind of okay come over here a little bit more come up here now you can either make your own stakes which i could have done because i've got plenty of wood but while i was at the hardware store they had these they had these stakes these are just some delicious steaks too i might throw some of these on the barbie later anyway these are super cheap so i just went ahead and bought some i need my level you want to grab my level rally it's the long yellow thing so what i'm going to do is work off of the high side just to make it easier this will be my starting point for everything else and right here is where like i got a split you can see there where there's a seam right there so i'm just going to put a stake on each side of that level that i only have a four foot level so that won't reach all the way across here so what i'm doing is i'm just kind of leveling it as i go along and that'll work the same i could take a straight edge if i wanted but this will work fine but you can see here by going across here like this how i'm level here now i'm just going to trim these stakes off so that they're not sticking up here that'll make it easier for me to screed once i get the concrete in here [Music] now if you're wondering why i'm putting a concrete slab out here in the front yard is because this slab is actually going to be where kim's water fountain sets that she got for her birthday and because it's a water fountain i need to be able to run a plug right down the middle of this a cord i should say that will run over to an electrical box that i'm going to install over here later in order to do that i've got to bury this three inch pipe and of course i could have went with a smaller pipe but i went with a three inch because that way i know when it makes that uh bend in the corner right there there will be zero issues so i've just got to dig out for this now [Music] i'm just going to kind of level the dirt out inside the form and this doesn't have to be exact this doesn't have to be perfectly level by any means i'm gonna put some gravel in the bottom of this now i've seen people pour pads using gravel and i've seen people pour pads without gravel it's supposed to help with the drainage i don't know really what it's going to do but i'm going to put it in there just to be on the safe side do be careful when removing your gravel from the bed of your truck just like with the dirt whenever i you know spread it out i'm not worried about this being especially level i just want to have about an inch of a base down next up is reinforcement and you could use some small rebar but i'm actually going to use this rebar panel or remesh as it's called [Music] all right who's ready to pour some concrete i pondered using my little concrete mixer a little electric mixer versus just using a bucket and then i came to the decision that it's kind of a hassle cleaning that thing out and this is kind of small so we'll see whether or not i regret that decision [Music] just to be clear i'm using quick crete high strength concrete mix 80 pound bags and i'm starting to question my decision to use the electric mixer madison and i continued adding cement as quickly as possible to prevent the earlier mixes from setting up i definitely wouldn't recommend pouring a bigger pad than this without either having a mixer or having more help available as we added cement i pulled the remesh up to make sure it was in the middle of the pad i also made sure to push the cement into the edges using my fingers what i'm doing now is screeding the top of it and i saved back some concrete some cement mix i should say to fill any low spots [Music] after screening the cement i smoothed it with a finishing