Just thought I'd report and thank you all for your suggestions,
clues, tips, and warnings about a do-it-yourself concrete slab
for complete amateurs. (! Snooze alert on !)
A complication that made many ideas impractical (renting a small
mixer, concreting the whole basement) is that our "luxurious" 9x13
basement is only accessible via a 3x3 trapdoor. We weren't even
sure we could get a wheelbarrow down there. That and the fact
that I'm 8 months pregnant and couldn't help much in the heavy
work (instead, I annoyed my husband by taking pictures).
We mixed the concrete by rolling the OdJob mixer (that Bill Rabel
suggested) to each other. FYI, Home Depot doesn't carry them
anymore, at least not the HDs around here. We were lucky to stumble
upon a leftover returned one (fortunately there are at least 5
Home Depots within 20 minutes driving distance).
Mixwise, all we did was follow the instructions on the OdJob thing,
using the lid as a measure, and encouraged by other people saying
they got the right mix by following instructions. The concrete
passed the "ridge" test -- a ridge made with a trowel didn't
crumble (too dry) and didn't fill in (too wet).
Gloves were also a really good suggestion -- concrete dust is nasty
stuff. Pouring the bags in that small confined space immediately
called for hauling a square fan down there to exhaust the dust.
Clueless about tools, somehow we walked out of Home Depot with a
cheap wooden float and a metal "finishing trowel", the latter of
which cost 5 times as much and was 10 times as useful to jiggle
the top as smooth as it got (which wasn't very smooth). Whoever
said floating was hard wasn't kidding.
This was a good project for total amateurs, as it doesn't need
to be that good, and doesn't need to be pretty. ALL it's going
to do is support a boiler and water tank in a basement -- the
contractor would have been happy with cinder blocks.
Thanks again for all your help/suggestions!
noemi
p.s. as part of my compulsive documentation disorder, I've put
some photos on this site, in case you're especially insomniac-ical:
http://www.nebcom.com/dnn/house/concretepad.html
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