New Garage/Workshop build

[M@tt]

well they seem to have done a pretty good job, it's not completely smooth round the very edges and i've been round with a trowel to tidy them up, but on the whole i'm pretty happy. The mix was a C35 fibre mix so should be nice and strong and the guy seemed adament that it wouldn't need any contraction/expansion joints cutting in it!?! which i'm not too sure about considereing everythign i've read on the internet although if it does crack he'll be coming back to fix it!

They apparently had finished by lunch and it was just 2 of them and they barrowed it straight from the mixer lorry as it was unable to get down past the gate section.

I'll give it till the weekend before i lay the other single course of bricks round the far edge and then i can start erecting the timber frame, whoop whoop!!

standing in the middle of it now does make it feel nice and spacious i can't wait for it to be finished!!

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

Watching this to get tips on concreting , you managed very well with the small mixer so far , how do the costs compare to ready mix ? I have laid about 4Mx4Mx100cm in slabs mixing in the barrow with a spade and realise would be better using a mixer or maybe just ordering ready mix for the rest and as you are doing paying the proffesionals as it would all be done in one day instead of three weeks , I think diy concreting only costs less if you dont put a value on your time the only benefit being its helping me lose my beer belly . More photos please .

I used to be in the plant hire game , I purchased my second Belle Mix 240 volt electric mixer for £160 four years ago , we have ( alison has ) mixed up well over 25 tonnes of concrete with it..

The best of having your own mixer is that if you keep it exceptionally clean you can sell if for nearly what you brought it for.

It is always ready when you and the weather are . If your reasonably fit 20 barrels a day laid and skimmed smooth is fairly easy to do once you have all the shuttering correctly in place. ( a 20 feet by 12 feet almost 4 inches thick slab )

Our previous Belle Mix was purchased for £100 inc VAT 1984 used by me till 1985 then sold to my mate PIP , he used it for two house renovations and building three garages, I brought it back in 89 and did two house refurbishments inc driveways and all paths , brick walls etc, Pip brought it back in 93 and built a bungalow , I brought it back in 94 built my conservatory and paths .. I finall put a new belt on it in 96 , drained and refilled the gear box and sold it for £60 to another friend ...there were no dings on the barrel and it was still orange almost all over for both Pip& I have kept it under cover when not in use.

The thing about ready mix is that small loads are very expensive. You have to have enough people on site to move it to where it is needed and enough players to work it ..some greedy drivers have been known to shoot the load on your drive way for they are paid by the load (usually ) On site time is usually 1/2 hr max unless you specifically get it in writing from the company to go over and pay the rate.

Getting reliable equipment is often full of problems unless you are a big company... then you hire two of each when you are pouring .. for eventualities .

To lay the office base slab here we hired a 4x4, 2 tonne dumper .. the path through the property to the base was difficult and took us 3/4 hr for 81/2 cu mtrs . I had to get my lass drive the dumper and get working the concrete for it is only guaranteed good for some thing like 2 hrs to be worked unless you get a retarder in it ( most companies charge the earth for it as well )

I had been persuaded to hire a new bit of kit called a magi float rather than the 5 mtr beam screeder set I was after...
The plant arrived two minutes or so before the concrete came ,even though I had specified for the float to arrive before cease of work the day before.

I got the plant mech /driver to start it ( been caught out once to often on hire kit not working ) ,sodding thing would not start, when the plant hire guy eventually got it going the mix was going off and becoming unworkable ..I tried to use the magi float and it died a terrible death ..the vibrating device fell apart .. I got got the plant hire company to authorise/ tell the fitter to help me screed the stuff off as best as we could using a 2 x 4 joist ..

I bitched like hell ...got all the hire free ...dumper , digger and obviously nothing for the screeder either.

 

[pidgeon chit welder]

well they seem to have done a pretty good job, it's not completely smooth round the very edges and i've been round with a trowel to tidy them up, but on the whole i'm pretty happy. The mix was a C35 fibre mix so should be nice and strong and the guy seemed adament that it wouldn't need any contraction/expansion joints cutting in it!?! which i'm not too sure about considereing everythign i've read on the internet although if it does crack he'll be coming back to fix it!

They apparently had finished by lunch and it was just 2 of them and they barrowed it straight from the mixer lorry as it was unable to get down past the gate section.

I'll give it till the weekend before i lay the other single course of bricks round the far edge and then i can start erecting the timber frame, whoop whoop!!

standing in the middle of it now does make it feel nice and spacious i can't wait for it to be finished!!

Those fibre mix reinforcing fibres ... Teryelene ? you will not normally need expansion joints in the little bit you have done , it is fantastic stuff & will expand and contract/slide over your WPM quite easily . I've never seen any crack , the fibres are evenly reinforcing it through out is thickness.

If you have to drill it wait for at least two months for when it is green it is very high friction stuff and likely to burn your drill out and drill bits. ( Guess how I found out?)

 

[spoiltbrat]

fibre

i have a garage floor measuring 45 x 35 ft and only needed 1 expansion joint as the fibre do a good job of keeping everything together well worth the extra ££££££££££

 

[M@tt]

well things aren't quite as rosy as they initially seemed

Today on removing the side shuttering i could see quite a few holes in the concrete along the shuttered edge which would indicate it hadn't been tamped down very well!

I then proceeded to remove the car lift recess shuttering and found the same! only this time there were also house bricks chucked into the mix!! I was obviously not happy so called up the useless prick of a builder and asked him to explain himself. All of which was pretty fruitless and he just gave me excuse after excuse of how the concrete had been delivered too lean and they had to work their arses off to get such a good finish! i said well your the expert surely if the mix wasn't right you reject it!

anyway i won't bore you all with the details but essentially i've asked him to come round and remedy it other wise i'll post up pictures of his handy work on the local Sheffield forum so that others can see the quality of his workman ship! He said he will if he gets time but tbh I'm not holding my breathe!

Alarm bells should have rung when he arrived in a van with no company logo on (always a sign that someones a dodgy f***er if they dont like to advertise who they are) and also he sent his wife round to collect payment the evening after it had been laid (before i'd had chance to remove the shuttering)

He kept saying that i got a quality ob done for a very cheap price. (i wouldn't consider £300 cheap for 1/2 day for 2 men) when he described the job he said to them it was a small easy job as they do concreting all the time and made out that there would be 3 or 4 guys barrowing it in rather than just him and his sidekick!

Anyway I've progressed on with laying the other course of bricks and cutting and drilling the base plates for the walls

holes in the shuttered sides

 

[Spud1985]

i cant beleve that they were stupid enough to not only chuck bricks in but to do it where they could be seen

id just like to say though not everyone who dosnt have there name on the van is dodgy my first van didnt have my name on and the one ive got now only has it on the back

 

[mike os]

As a builder I can honestly say... ****.... not well compacted and edges not given the attention they should have been.

Should be ok as a floor still but there really is no excuse for that kind of workmanship, & 300 notes for 2 blokes a day is taking the **** on a concrete job.... unless complex or involved. let alone half a day.

My van has no signwriting either.........

 

[brightspark]

i cant beleve that they were stupid enough to not only chuck bricks in but to do it where they could be seen

id just like to say though not everyone who dosnt have there name on the van is dodgy my first van didnt have my name on and the one ive got now only has it on the back

lol avent my name on my van and never will and i dont advertise and dont take jobs on any further away than 5 miles generaly and only work 4 people i know or have recomended me

 

[M@tt]

on the plus side the **** did get a parking ticket for parking on double yellows out side my house

any suggestions as to the best course of action to remedy the walls and occlusions in the car lift recess walls?

No offence meant by the van comment , but int his case i can see why he wouldn't want to advertise himself if this is the sate of his workmanship!

 

[richard s]

what sort of customer service is if i get time i will sort it later
get them named and shamed there is too much of this taking money for a **** job and doing nothing to rectify it

 

[scott0031]

If that's the sort of job they do when they' do concreating all the time' i would hate to see what a mess they make attempting something for the first time. That really is nothing but total laziness or lack of a clue with what they are doing. Its hardly hard work to get a bit of 2x2 and go podging around the edges, not as if it takes 4 hours to do!

I would be a bit concerned long term, water ingress and freezing temps on the exposed edges, i can see that starting to deteriorate well before its time.

The way i see it the amount they quoted or charged is neither here or there. you are paying for a job and the job to be done right. That's why you employed them in the first place.


Offer to give them some good free advertising, as in these boards builders put up at properties they are working on xxx xxx bodgit concreating services. Put it inside your drive way then if they try to remove..... oh they have trespassed Always worth dropping a line to the rouge traders, for all you know they may have a string of complaints against the same guys.



Kind regards,


Scott

 

[mike os]

quite... I would be round this morning if it were my job.... not that it would end up looking like that anyway.


trading standards would be my first point of call (assuming you are 100% sure there is no need for council involvement in what you are doing, otherwise keep well away)


Only means of rectifying now is to patch the edges with render... use a 4:1 building sand:cement, diluted unibond to the edges getting into most of the holes.. to help adhesion & damp down then fill & rub up with a wooden/plastic float. After 28 days paint with good quality masonry paint externally & floor paint internally.....

or cut the edges off & recast... expensive & difficult to guarentee bond....

 

[cazl1994]

you do sometimes get small air gaps in the side of shuttering but nothing that bad
to get rid of that they should of used a poker
and by the way we dont have our name on our van or advertise all our work is word of mouth
the reason that happend the mix was too dry so they could power float it quick because if you were power floating it you wouldn't be finished by dinner time

 

[Pete.]

Yep no poker used there to get the air out. If you did the shuttering yourself it might have been a blessing as I've seen some terrible disasters from burst shutters when the poker was applied. On the up-side even though it looks pretty bad around the edges, that is the only place you'll have those sort of air gaps. Throughout the slab it'll be a lot more solid with just small holes dotted about. I've seen that sort of thing countless times.

My advice: forget it and move on with the build. If it makes you feel better make the outside edges good with a trowelled-on cement mix, but otherwise stop worrying and crack on with the rest of the job. Odds are you'll get nowhere with the builder and causing yourself more heartache will do you no good.

 

[mike os]

no real need for a poker on that... just make it wet enough & compact wih a tamp properly....

 

[cazl1994]

no real need for a poker on that... just make it wet enough & compact wih a tamp properly....

yes but if they wanted it dry to power float quick they should have used a poker then

 

[""kb]

The BIG thing that would have really got up my nose about it is that after putting in all that effort and hard work in just for some numpty to come along and make a fcuk up of it and paying £300 for the pleasure. GRrrrrrrrr

 

[M@tt]

cheers for the replies chaps & mike for the patching info

""kb thats my main gripe! i'm pretty confident having seen what they've done that i could have done a more professional job if i'd have hired a power float for the day!

Anyway onwards and upwards!

 

[mike os]

for that little job a bull float would have ben even easier..... and you could make it wet enough to compact easily.... basically a bunch of monkey spankers on the job

 

[M@tt]

you said it mike!!!