pouring floor: in sections? Dry sticking to wet?
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I'm planning to pour an aircrete floor and looking for advice from those that came before me. I'm not going to have a big concrete mixing truck so I'm going to have to do it batches. Wondering if this creates a problem. The last pour might be 2 days after the first pour.
My first thought is to pour into 5x5 foot slabs using thin steal as the "walls" to kinda make a mold. Then just leave the steal in the floor to not have any air gaps.
Questions: How well does newly poured wet aircrete stick to dried aircrete?, and totally 10 day cured?
Anyone have any issues with aircrete and steal studs not working well together?
Anyone use a electric barrel concrete mixer instead of the hand held paint type mixer? (that seems to dominate the youtube videos but makes my arms hurt just watching it.)
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Metal and concrete seems to always have issues eventually. I will be painting all metal embedded into concrete like ferocement water tanks I am going to build. I know there are products to treat cured concrete so new concrete will "stick".
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@Traveler004
I just saw this post and in case you’re not already enjoying your new floor I thought I’d share this.At the Domegaia workshop I attended I n Mazunte, I was concerned by the number of broken and chipped blocks we were producing.
Apart from reassuring me I’d get better with practice, Hijar explained there’d be little waste in the end as all the broken and crumbled blocks ended up in the floor slab. You just pour some fresh aircrete over the top.
So I don’t know if you need to worry about wet and dry sections .
I haven’t got that far yet, but I was going to pour the floor in sections using two wooden forms to make wedges from the centre, like pieces of pie.
I was going to leave it to set for a day.
Then move the forms to create 2 wedges either side of the first. Pour them. And continue till I get to the front door.
Wotcha rekon?
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@Traveler004
Id stick with what works in terms of a mixer....the hand held isnt that heavy and works like a charm. 5 mins for 48 gallons. The standard cement mixer breaks down the foam as far as I recall otherwise youd see it used everywhere.
I saw a slab done in 2 sections - the perimeter 1st so it was all contiguous- then a big square in the centre poured in afterwards. Smart move as the centre square required no new forms as it was contained by the hardened
crete from the 1st perimeter pour.
I'd paint on some latex bonding agent along the sides of the 1st pour to be sure a good bond of the two. Eventually you'll be pouring some kind of crete floor over your entire slab to make your hard surface finish. Id brush or roll on bonding agent prior to that pour too.
Good luck!
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Why not use a texture gun with hopper and spray a sticky mortar layer where the new pour joins? I was thinking of using this technique to apply the final cloth layer.
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@Greg-Walker Thanks greg. I ended up buying both mixers. And FYI to everyone a barrel cement mixer worked just fine. However i using the hand mixer most of the time because i make 5 gallon batches. but for anyone who already has a barrel mixer or would rather do that then try to pour out a 50 gallon jug, it works. But it is as messy as mixing regular concrete.
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@upwinger I've seen a few youtube video doing this with mixed results. Let me know how it goes. I'm not going to spray cement because i work hard to NOT get it everywhere LOL.
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Traveler, I too have been mixing in a 50gal drum with the hand mixer and found it a lot of work for my 67year old body. What I found was that, for me, the hardest part was getting a thorough mixing of the cement and water only, to be the most demanding. It was hard to get all the cement mixed into the 'slurry', with no or little residue/paste on the bottom of the barrel after I poured it out. (especially since I was doing this myself) What I was thinking, was that mixing the cement in a barrel mixer, assuring that it was well mixed, then pouring that slurry into my 50-gallon drum and adding the foam at that point. I'm new to this and have only done a few test batches, but my first test batches raised concerns with me since in the future I want to add sand 1:1 for a slab and can only imagine it getting more difficult. I guess the next best thing would be to find a 'younger' helper :-) Your thoughts would be welcome.
Aloha,
Jim
