Steve B wrote:
"Home Guy" wrote in message
...
Steve B wrote:
I bought one of those random repeat forms that end up with a paver
walkway of what appears to be random sized stones, but there is a
repeat in it. You get your base prepared, lay the form on there,
pour concrete in the holes, pat it down, and immediately remove the
form.
If you don't mix the concrete correctly (ie - if you use too much
water) then the minute you remove the form, the concrete will ooze
together and the gap between stones will disappear.
You have approx. 2 sf of pavers.
Assuming this form is 3" high, then 2 sq ft x 3" is about .5 a cubic
foot of concrete (without taking the gaps into account).
Anyone ever use one of these?
I haven't.
It is surely going to take a lot of 80# sacks to do this job.
Suggestions/caveats appreciated.
I've mixed an estimated 420 cubic feet (15.5 cubic yards) of concrete
using a small 1.5 cf electric mixer over the past few years. I buy
sand and stone right from the quary and load it into my pickup truck
myself, so it costs me about $20 a ton for 1/2" crushed stone, and
washed brick sand is twice that. Cement costs about $12 a bag (40
kg or 88 lbs). If you buy sand and stone already pre-bagged as 30-lb
bags, then it's
going to cost significantly more to make concrete.
I also use pigments, super-plasticiser and air-entrainment agent,
but I won't take that cost into account here.
Taking only the cost of sand, stone, and cement into account, I
figure it costs me about $3.42 per cubic foot to make cement
(equates to $92 a cubic yard).
So going by those numbers, it would cost roughly $3.50 to make enough
concrete to do 2 of your forms (4 square feet).
You can make about 5.5 cubic feet of concrete with one 80 or 88 lb
bag of cement using a standard mix formula, which would be enough to
fill your form about 7 times.
Your average paver might be 6" x 6" and it would take 16 of them to
cover 4 square feet, and they'd have to cost 22 cents each to be
cost-equivalent to the concrete-in-form method.
The form method has a nice advantage in that your top surface will be
nice and even and flat, something that can take a while to do when
you're putzing with pavers. But you have to get the consistency
exactly right if you want to remove the form right after you pour
the concrete and not have the gaps get filled in right away. Even
then, I would suggest you have the sand ready to pour into the gaps
when you remove the form.
Reading the directions (WTF do they know?), it suggests one form per
80# bag, which sounds a little fishy, but I won't know until I am
into it. I want to have stained concrete, so if I get a consistent
setup going, I can just use the same amount of water, and the same
number of spoons of colorant, and it should come up close.
The 80# bags are right at $4 per bag in my area, making it $2 per
square foot. Pavers are $.59 and $.99 respectively for the 5.5" and
5.5 x 8". Doing fast math on that, that's $3.27 per sf for the
biggies, and $2.80 for the smaller. Correct me if I am wrong.
Around here (central Florida) concrete pavers from Home Depot run in the
range of $1.40 ("Holland") to $2.20 per sq.ft. If you can buy by pallets,
you can get them for a lot less from manufacturers/distributers.
I had a 1750 sq.ft. courtyard done a year ago, cost me a total of $5.00 per
sq.ft...$2.50 sq.ft for clay brick, the same for all other materials and
labor. Clay brick is a bit more than concrete but well worth the cost IMO
for the reasons previously stated.
--
dadiOH
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