Concrete ?'s

I'm planning on pouring a small concrete wall 3' high at one end of my flower garden. It slopes down at one end of my house and I thought about pouring a concrete wall instead of doing block. It will be "L" shaped. The length will be 6' on the long and 4' on the short. It will be 4" thick with about a foot below grade. There will only be about a foot and half of fill dirt behind the wall to level out the garden.

So here is my question. I plan on using sakrete or quickrete. I have a couple of bags of portland cement. If I mix some portland cement in with the sakrete, will it make it stronger? or will it cause premature failure? I'm not a pro at this. Ususally the stuff I've poured in the past comes from a truck. I do have a cement mixer which should help make things a bit easier. The concrete companies around here won't haul anything less than 3 yards. Thanks...........SS

Re: Concrete ?'s

Ayuh,... Howdy SS,..... Adding portland will strengthen it somewhat, although it's probably unnecessary...
Common sackcrete is 5000lb. mix I believe...

4" is a rather skinny wall,... Maybe some steel to reinforce it would do better than adding portland....

Re: Concrete ?'s

Sakrete or Quickcrete comes in different grades. Their highest strength mix I recall is 5000psi and as would be expected is more expensive. By buying the less expensive mix and adding 2 pounds of portland per 40# sack will increase the strength and save a few bucks since you already have the portland on hand. Adding too much will not increase the strength but can be detrimental to the actual strength.

Re: Concrete ?'s

I don't see a need to add anything to the Sakcrete. I would add a couple of rebar around the corner. The L corner is going to be a crack point.

Re: Concrete ?'s

Quickcrete is ok, anything over 3000 psi will be fine actually. I don't think I've ever seen 4" form ties tho. +1 on the rebar horizontally every 12". Don't forget the form oil!

Re: Concrete ?'s

SS MAYFLOAT said:

I'm planning on pouring a small concrete wall 3' high at one end of my flower garden. It slopes down at one end of my house and I thought about pouring a concrete wall instead of doing block. It will be "L" shaped. The length will be 6' on the long and 4' on the short. It will be 4" thick with about a foot below grade. There will only be about a foot and half of fill dirt behind the wall to level out the garden.

So here is my question. I plan on using sakrete or quickrete. I have a couple of bags of portland cement. If I mix some portland cement in with the sakrete, will it make it stronger? or will it cause premature failure? I'm not a pro at this. Ususally the stuff I've poured in the past comes from a truck. I do have a cement mixer which should help make things a bit easier. The concrete companies around here won't haul anything less than 3 yards. Thanks...........SS

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You need about 10 cubic feet of concrete.
If you already have 2 bags of Portland, just buy another bag of portland, 6 bags of masonry sand, and 9 of 1/2-3/4 " aggregate.
Mix it by volume 1:2:3 with as little water as makes it workable.
Considerably cheaper than the Sakrete (but you can price it out) and just as good or better.

If you were just mixing 1 or 2 cu ft the Sakrete is pretty convenient, but once you are at the amount you will be mixing, I don't think it is any less convenient using the components.

Re: Concrete ?'s

Thanks for the info.

It figures. The local codes and permits saw my form and had to stop and check it out. According to them, I must make the wall 6" thick vs 4", and pour to at least 36" below frost line. Now this is a problem. I don't want this to be a permanent thing. Just for a few years until I build a wrap around porch onto my house. However, they said that I did not need a permit for this job. . ????

So for now, I'm going to find some old railroad ties and use them to build up my flower garden extension. I think the concrete would look better than ugly ties .....SS

Re: Concrete ?'s

SS MAYFLOAT said:

Thanks for the info.

It figures. The local codes and permits saw my form and had to stop and check it out. According to them, I must make the wall 6" thick vs 4", and pour to at least 36" below frost line. Now this is a problem. I don't want this to be a permanent thing. Just for a few years until I build a wrap around porch onto my house. However, they said that I did not need a permit for this job. . ????

So for now, I'm going to find some old railroad ties and use them to build up my flower garden extension. I think the concrete would look better than ugly ties .....SS

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You pour tea!

You place concrete! The "proper" term.

I wish my frost line was at 36"...... our's is 48".

If it is in your budget you could use paver's made for retaining walls...... or depending on your area..... stone has been used for centuries and making stone walls is an art.

Re: Concrete ?'s

Bob_VT said:

You pour tea!

You place concrete! The "proper" term.

I wish my frost line was at 36"...... our's is 48".

If it is in your budget you could use paver's made for retaining walls...... or depending on your area..... stone has been used for centuries and making stone walls is an art.

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Dang it Bob....I said I aint no pro! I thought you placed concrete in the dump truck once you broke it all up

Yeah, I thought about using stone. I have a "creek" (however you want to pronounce it) out back of my property that I can get stone out of. I'm not sure about pooshing the wheel barrow that fur

Re: Concrete ?'s

SS MAYFLOAT said:

Dang it Bob....I said I aint no pro! I thought you placed concrete in the dump truck once you broke it all up

Yeah, I thought about using stone. I have a "creek" (however you want to pronounce it) out back of my property that I can get stone out of. I'm not sure about pooshing the wheel barrow that fur

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You git stone outa the crick, and that's how you end up with...a crick....in your back...

Re: Concrete ?'s

Tim Frank said:

You git stone outa the crick, and that's how you end up with...a crick....in your back...

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that is why it was just a thought

Re: Concrete ?'s

use quickcrete with fibers it replaces steel . thats all you need + a form

Re: Concrete ?'s

Tim Frank said:

You git stone outa the crick, and that's how you end up with...a crick....in your back...

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Pat McManus once wrote that the difference between a creek and a crick was that a crick had at least one old rusted car in it

Re: Concrete ?'s

Bob_VT said:

If it is in your budget you could use paver's made for retaining walls...... or depending on your area..... stone has been used for centuries and making stone walls is an art.

Click to expand...

+1 on this idea but I'd simply go with a modular landscape retaining wall block. I'm not a fan of the Home Depot/Menards specials. You can get much better quality and aesthetic options going with something like Unilock or Keystone products available at most stone/mulch supply yards.

Benefits:

1. Not permanent and when you want to tear down the wall you can reuse the blocks or sell'em on CL.
2. You only need an 8"-12" compacted aggregate base and you really only need to bury one full course of the wall below grade. (i.e. if you have 12" aggregate base course and use 8" tall block you only need to excavate 20" at most...actually if this is truely temporary you could get away with 6-8" compacted base.)
3. Any concrete you want to remove is a pain in the *****. It's heavy, difficult to break without machinery and difficult to dispose of for a DIYer. Again you can easily un-stack a block wall and use it or sell it.
4. If you do add rebar to the concrete just remember that when you want to remove it, rebar in this size wall is not going to give it much strength but will mainly keep it from separating WHEN it cracks. I agree, the corner is the weakest point.

good luck!

Re: Concrete ?'s

SS MAYFLOAT said:

I'm planning on pouring a small concrete wall 3' high at one end of my flower garden. It slopes down at one end of my house and I thought about pouring a concrete wall instead of doing block. It will be "L" shaped. The length will be 6' on the long and 4' on the short. It will be 4" thick with about a foot below grade. There will only be about a foot and half of fill dirt behind the wall to level out the garden.

So here is my question. I plan on using sakrete or quickrete. I have a couple of bags of portland cement. If I concrete mix some portland cement in with the sakrete, will it make it stronger? or will it cause premature failure? I'm not a pro at this. Ususally the stuff I've poured in the past comes from a truck. I do have a cement mixer which should help make things a bit easier. The concrete companies around here won't haul anything less than 3 yards. Thanks...........SS

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Hate to bump and old thread, but this thread actually inspired me to finish one of my projects. Here's what I made:



Thought I'd share it with you guys. Did you ever complete your project?

Re: Concrete ?'s

That is some nice work. Yes, I finally got mine done. Doesn't look as nice as yours though. Do a search on a member Topmason. He had posted some real nice pics of work that he had done. Thanks for asking......SS