[AT] Concrete slab

[Cecil E Monson]

	My father bought a 230 acre farm in 1943 with buildings that
were almost worthless for a mixed dairy/grain farm such as ours. We took
3 years to rebuild the whole thing. We moved the house a hundred fifty
feet closer to the road, tore down most of the old barn and all the old
sheds. We dug the new basement for the house with a horse drawn scoop
pulled by the 9N Ford and mixed all the concrete by hand for the footings,
cast walls and basement floor. We also mixed all the concrete by hand
for new concrete floors for the barn, milk house, 2 1/2 car garage and
the chicken house. We build a big machine shed too but never put a
concrete floor in it for some reason.

	I did 90% of the mixing for the whole thing. I started out as
a 14 year old boy and was about 60 years old when I finished. grins.
Actually, it was good exercise and was not a big problem for me. Our
mix was almost always one scoop of Portland cement, 5 scoops of sand
mixed with any gravel we had, and a small pail of water. I forget now
how many scoops of sand and cement it took to make a batch in the
mixer. We had the sand on our own property at several bends in the creek
which ran north of the barn across the property and all the sand was
hauled up from the creek with the 9N Ford. The farm had two old gravel
pits on it and we found enough good sharp gravel in them to add to the
mix with the sand from the creek. Any rocks we found on the property
went into footings and some into the walls of the basement of the house.
My father said that any rocks that go into the foundation would only
strengthen the mix and not hurt it. He was right.

	My father was one for starting early and had my uncle there as
a rule to help wheel cement from the mixer where I was working to the
pour. He did not allow any cold joints and we worked until we got to
where he wanted an expansion joint even if it meant a very long day.
The mixer was powered by one of those little IHC engines that looks like
a red block. I can say this, you can pour an awful lot of concrete with
a mixer fed by hand if you start early and keep going. Mixers have a
sort of growl to them as the gears go around and I can almost still hear
ours running.

	I would say that mixing by hand with a gas engine powered mixer
is not for everyone. People nowadays don't seem to be programmed to work
like we did back then and want to take too many breaks. Pouring concrete
should go without interruption as much as possible so you don't get bad
spots in your pour. As to savings, I don't think we saved much money, it
was just that there was no other way to make concrete where we lived back
then. Sounds like Ralph had the same situation where he was in Saskatchewan
and did things the same way. I'll bet his father started early in the day
too......

	I agree with Bear about the use of Sakrete these days. I bought
a sack of it a couple years ago to make a good base for a bird feeder
post near the house. The salesman at the lumber yard told me to just dig
the hole, pour the Sakrete in dry and set the pole. He said that ground
moisture would do the rest without adding water. I don't know about this.
I tried it and it took several years for the bird feeder pole to stop
moving with the wind. I'd say I could have done just as well tamping the
ground around the pole as I did with that Sakrete. It might be set up by
now but I'd not bet on it.

Cecil
-- 
The nicest thing about telling the truth is you never have to wonder
what you said.

Cecil E Monson
Lucille Hand-Monson
Mountainville, New York   Just a little east of the North Pole

Allis Chalmers tractors and equipment

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