Bags or Concrete Truck?

[Jon Bon]

Is there an inflection point on when to switch from 80# bags of concrete to mixer truck delivery? I have 'some' side walks I need to replace. I could replace only the bad sections (48 sqft) or most/all of the sections (300sqft++?)

The site is rather tight, I would not be able to get the truck directly to the sidewalks (between the houses) so it would have to be a wheel barrel. I am not thrilled about paying the short load charge and being a bet hurried by the truck.

Any advice? Is there a middle ground between bags and truck that I am missing?

[405programmer]

Many years ago we bought a used barrel concrete mixer to make mixing a few hundred bags of concrete easier (poured a sidewalk around the perimeter of a house). We did it over the course of a few weeks. After we were done with the mixer we cleaned it and repainted it with an oil paint and sold the mixer for $100 more than we paid. I couldn't imagine wheelbarrow mixing that many bags.

You could also look into using the barrel mixer and having the raw materials delivered to your house. I think you need sand, gravel and lime / mortar mix. Just keep the lime / mortar dry and inside and the gravel and sand can sit outside in the rain.

[BudgetSlasher]

I second the concrete mixer. You pick them up on CL for a decent price or you can buy them new from HD/Lowes for a few hundred.

A sidewalk is usually 4 to 6 inches (1/3 to 1/2 a foot thick) and there is .6 cubic feet per 80 pound bag of concrete you are looking at either

(48 * 1/3 / .6 = ~27 bags of concrete) to (300 * 1/3 / .6 = ~167 bags of concrete)

or

(48 * 1/2 / .6 = 40 bags of concrete) to (300 * 1/2 / .6 = 250 bags of concrete)

Those are not numbers of bags that I would want to mix up by hand in a wheel burrow.

You can also look at local costs for having a truck bring a yard of concrete and compare that to the cost of 45 80 bags of concrete (that makes one cubic yard). And make your own conclusions on if it is worth it (for a cost prospective).

[Jon Bon]

Ugh, I probably should do the entire thing honestly. I think I can get the concrete for about $120 a yard or so which is cheap all things considered. I just have to get rid of all the old concrete first!

Barrel mixer is for sure a good idea. I could always buy and sell on CL for less than the cost of a rental.

[BudgetSlasher]

Ugh, I probably should do the entire thing honestly. I think I can get the concrete for about $120 a yard or so which is cheap all things considered. I just have to get rid of all the old concrete first!

Barrel mixer is for sure a good idea. I could always buy and sell on CL for less than the cost of a rental.

If you can get it for that price, do it.

At our local Home Depot 80 pound bags of concrete at $3.05/ea (when you buy 42 or more). So, a yard of concrete would cost you, 3.05 * 45, or 137.25.

Just make sure that the truck can either deposit the concrete directly into the sidewalk forms you place or have a plan to get it into place such as multiple people with wheel burrows.

[Jon Bon]

Ugh, I probably should do the entire thing honestly. I think I can get the concrete for about $120 a yard or so which is cheap all things considered. I just have to get rid of all the old concrete first!

Barrel mixer is for sure a good idea. I could always buy and sell on CL for less than the cost of a rental.

If you can get it for that price, do it.

At our local Home Depot 80 pound bags of concrete at $3.05/ea (when you buy 42 or more). So, a yard of concrete would cost you, 3.05 * 45, or 137.25.

Just make sure that the truck can either deposit the concrete directly into the sidewalk forms you place or have a plan to get it into place such as multiple people with wheel burrows.

Yeah if I could get the truck to pour it directly into the forms I would but...... here we are!

So 600ish for the concrete, another 300 for materials and paying a laborer. $1000 for new sidewalks, yeah that feels worth it.

[lthenderson]

Back in the day, I probably would have done the old barrel mixer and wheelbarrow it in place routine but that is a lot of work and time. I've even done the wheelbarrow from the cement mixer routine but like you said, that is stressful and depending on the operator, a very hard time getting the right amount of concrete in the wheelbarrow without it being so full it is overflowing and can't be moved to hardly worth the time to push it across the yard and empty such a little amount.

These days, for a job like that on a tight site, I just fork over the dough and rent a pumping rig from the local concrete place. They bring it out on a trailer with the truck and it pumps the concrete into the exact place that it is needed without the concrete truck every leaving the road. Best of all, when the concrete has been poured, they clean everything and take it away and I'm not left with extra bags of concrete or a mixer I have to return, etc. I find it well worth it in time savings and my body thanks me the following days.

[Jon Bon]

Ugh a rough math of sidewalks would be about 200 linear feet of sidewalk, so close to 600sqft of concrete which would be over 5 yards if I did it all..... So bags are out. I thought about getting a concrete buggy but I dont know if I could get get that into the tighter spaces.

I guess it just depends on how much I want to do this. Really the price does not bother me as much as the scale of the project and the time I have available to do this.