Hi all,
I began to lay the first of my foundation blocks for my conservatory yesterday and am not sure whether I made the morter correctly.
I needed to know the weight of cement which I was adding to the sand in order to be able to add the correct amount of FebMix+ plasticiser which is specified at about 2.8 mls per 1kg of cement.
I understand the correct ratio to be 1:4 cement to builders sand so I measured 4 small buckets of sand and put them in my large mixing bucket. I then poured 1 small bucket of cement and weighed it. It came in at 6kg. I then thought, hang on, 6kg of cement means I should have used 24kg of sand yet I've used less than half the 25kg bag. So, I weighed what was left of the sand in the bag (SWMBO not pleased with non-standard use of bathroom scales) and determined that I actually had 12kg of sand in my big mixing bucket, so I tipped some of my measure of cement back into it's bag so that I had 3kg of cement and then added that to my big bucket, mixed the mortar and sucessfully laid (or so I hope) 9 blocks with it. I'm now a little worried that I should have mixed by volume and that my morter is never going to set or will set with little strength.
Help!
Mike