Harold,

Thanks for the replies and the suggestions. I'm thankful to the group for
all the info its defiantly going to help me reduce the number of "DUH, why
didn't I think of that before I poured 80 yards of concrete" moments.


Andrew


"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
...
Instead of. However, if I said it was on 18" spacing, I was wrong. The
hoses are, but the rebar is on 12" spacing. I have a photo of the layout
in
one of our albums which I could scan if you're interested. It worked out
by
choosing where I tied the hoses. I could install rebar as cheaply as
mesh
at the time, and I don't like wrestling with the mesh that comes from
rolls.
It's clearly a bitch to get flat enough to keep your hoses where you want
them, and dobies don't do much of a job of keeping it at the right height.
I decided that if I was going to spend the money, I may as well get the
benefit of the stronger support. No regrets, aside from it taking a lot
of
time to tie the intersections. I poured about 2,600 square feet. I
strongly recommend the rebar in lieu of mesh to avoid any settling should
you get cracks.

I added a lot more rebar at the entrances, where I risked breaking the
edge
of the floor with my lift truck. It weights about 5 tons alone, as I
stated, and I figured it was cheaper to add rebar than to fix a broken
floor
and heating system. To that end, I ran additional rebar from the
entrance
to roughly 6 feet in. That maybe wasn't necessary, but the floor hasn't
cracked, in spite of having hauled a maximum load through the doors, so
I'm
happy I made that decision. I also used a 6 sack mix. In my
opinion,
saving a couple hundred dollars on a project of that magnitude is not
worth
the risk from cutting corners.

One other thing I did was install a built in vacuum cleaner, a large one
capable of servicing 18,000 square feet. All of the pipe is either under
the floor or poured in the walls. Twin motors, with no filter bag. It
discharges directly outside and has a cyclonic separator. We'll extend it
to the house, so it will serve double duty. If your budget can stand
the
cost, it's a super way to go for keeping a shop clean. We can walk
around
in stocking feet with no worries (we're living in the shop while we
build).

Good luck!

Harold