DIYbanter - View Single Post

On Mon, 01 May 2006 01:21:56 GMT, wrote:

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 11:37:44 -0400, "Proctologically Violated©®"
wrote:

Awl--

In my shop-floor pouring travails (at least preparing for them), I gained
some inneresting insights.

1. Harbor Freight, ito of info, is even more useless than HD, if you can
imagine that.

The Husky mixer at HD is clear: $299 for a 5.0 cu ft drum, which will mix
2.5 cu ft.

2. Next, I was shocked to discover the following.
That it winds up being more than 2x as expensive to mix yer own
cement/gravel/sand as it is to just mix typical ready mix! I calc'd
$6.66/cu ft using ready mix, vs. about $14+ mixing the ingredients yerself.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow.....
You can approx'ly check the calcs: $10 for 94 lbs cement, which yields 4.5
cu ft concrete, and which requires 250-300# sand (at $4 for 60 lbs) plus 300
lbs of gravel (at $4/60 lbs). Some of the data posted conflicts, but this
is more or less correct.

You pay wat to much for sand. Goto the local rock quarry or gravel
pit. Truckoad of sand ( 2100lbs cost me approx $6.50 ) Gravel is
just as cheap.
On one project, one of my employees bet the crusher foreman he could
haul his pickup box level full of crushed rock out of the quarry and a
mile and a half home. First try, he lost most of the load when he did
a "wheely". Next try, he backed up the hill, drove home, shoveled the
gravel off and drove back to the quarry to collect his case of beer.
That old Fargo was one tough truck, he had boosted the tire pressure
enough to keep the rims off the road, and drove slow enough to keep
from bottoming out too often.
Most of the cost of gravel is in delivery and placing.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada