interesting...
I'm planning an additional garage now. there's no way I'm doing the house,
but since the driveway can't go down since after the concrete trucks are gone,
and then they can't come back over the finished drive, I'm going to do all the
foundations I want now.
so a (approximately) 32' square slab is going in in front. I'd kinda like to
do it myself. can you get a broom-finish, ultra smooth slab on your own? is
it the power trowel that does it? I've done a section of driveway, and it was
nice after floating, but it was still 'driveway' smooth, nothing like a
concrete garage floor or a house slab. how do they get the finish?
scott
> I'm _far_ from an expert. In fact, I probably know just enough to be
> dangerous. That said...
>
> There are three or four main steps in pouring a slab.
<snip>
> 4) Floating. Buy a float. They're not that expensive. Get enough handle
> on there to reach the other end and adjust the angle so that you can drop
> the handle down when you're pushing out and raise it when you're pushing
> back. You want the leading edge (in the direction you're moving) to be
> higher than the back by a little so that the float doesn't dig in. It
> really will feel like its floating, and this is way easier to do/feel than
> to explain. Doing this will help smooth the surface and knock down the
> rocks in the concrete. It won't, in my limited experience, do anything
> about leveling, etc.
>
> 5) Power troweling. Wait until the concrete is fairly well set up.
> Pushing on it with a finger should barely leave a mark, you should be able
> to walk on it with just a bit of a footprint on the surface, etc. Lift
> the power trowel up on there and start it up. If the trowel is smearing
> the concrete vs. smoothing it, stop and let it setup up more. Work the
> trowel back and forth, smoothing everything out. Btw, you control the
> trowel by shifting the weight forward, back, to one side, or the other
> side. Its just like a floor polisher (I knew being a janitor's helper
> would come in handy! :-). Shifting the weight around makes the spinning
> blades get a little more traction on one of the quadrants and the polisher
> will move in that direction. Brute force doesn't work.
>
> Other things...
<snip>
> I'd never done this prior to a few months ago and was _very_
> nervous/tentative. So I went over to help a buddy pour his floor (who
> also hadn't done it) and practice. :-) After just skreeding the floor,
> we had a surface that was better than many I've seen and used and would
> certainly beat the hell outta wood. After floating it was something I'd
> have expected from someone who I was paying, but maybe wasn't an expert.
> After power trowelling the floor looked as good as anything else I've
> seen.
>
> I'm quite sure that a pro could have done it faster, wouldn't have made
> the mistake of trying to power trowel too soon, wouldn't have been as
> nervous, and maybe could have made it look even better (particularly at
> the edges... If you don't get concrete in the edges when you're skreeding,
> you kinda screw yourself for later on). I know for sure that I wouldn't
> have been as tired. :-) However the floor we poured, all of us as our
> first time, was _much_ better than any of us were expecting it to be.
>
> While I'm quite sure there's a _ton_ of stuff I don't know and mistakes
> I'll make when I do my floor, I now see concrete as something that's not
> too hard to do a decent job with.
>
> Sorta like if you're a normal person who can do carpentry vs. a
> professional carpenter... :-)
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