Can anybody work out?

Jul 03, 2005 9 Replies

Want to concrete an area for parking a car on. Size is 6ft X 11ft and want 6in deep. Roughly how much sand/ballast/cement will I need I think it works out to about 1.25 cubic yards if sums are right (please confirm though)


On Sun, 3 Jul 2005 13:54:31 +0000 (UTC),it is alleged that "Pilbs" spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

Confirmed on the cubic measurement, 1.22222 cubic yards, 1.25=good compromise.

As to how much of each to mix for this amount, mykb's suggestion of diy.com seems good:-)

2 bags of ballast from B&Q = 1800KG of aggrigate you need 4 or 5 ballast to 1 cement, so thats 360kg of cement, or 15 bags

an electric mixer (or two) and a bit of hard work = job done.

Rick

But, to answer the question in the subject - get your doctors advice first :)

That's about 2-3 tons of material in all.

Start with a ton of sharp sand a ton of ballast and about 8 bags of cement...maybe more cement if you want it really 'strong'

See

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for a detailed discussion and calculators. In particular, you need to consider what sort of sub-base you need.

2 tons of aggrigate to 8 bags of cement (25kg each) is a 10:1 mix, are you sure this is not too weak ?

well the stone doesn't count. Ive used 5:1 sand/cement and it sets hard enough: Its porous though.

The message from The Natural Philosopher contains these words:

Only just come across this thread.

I tend to use 1:2:3 which is probably over egging the cement even though I tend to go light on the 1 (IYSWIM). Measured by the 3 gallon bucket that just fills my mixer.

FWIW a cubic yard of 1:2:3 concrete should contain 0.271 tons of cement,

0.601 tons of sharp sand and 0.794 tons of gravel.

Also FWIW I tend to use 4:1 for mortar.

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