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+-- Thread: A New Patio (/showthread.php?tid=7302660)
A New Patio - jteneyck - 06-17-2016
I had a patio poured about 25 years ago. The contractor did about everything wrong and I was too young and stupid to know any different at the time. The drainage he put under the slab was pitched the wrong way and actually brought rain water under the slab instead of away from it. Over the years the soil eroded and the patio pitched towards the house and cracked in several places. I resolved the water problem a couple of years ago, but the patio had to go.
Last Summer I built a new deck and one of the stairs needs to land on the patio. The new patio is about the same size and shape as the old one, but I didn't want a plain slab of cement, so this is the design I came up with.
The new contractor I selected based on reputation and a very fair price. Here's a photo of him tearing up the old slab with his little Bobcat.
The guy in the back of this photo is jack hammering away part of the landing step from the back door. So much water came under the old landing that it had pitched down away from the house. They took off about 5" of it and cast a new landing on top of what remained.
In less than 2 hours they were setting the forms.
Then brought in some more crushed stone.
They went off to setup another job but came back in about 3 hours to pour the step and aggregate in the circle. They brought the concrete from the street in this nice little power wheel barrow.
Then transferred it to a manual wheel barrow to go the forms.
Screeded it off and then troweled it smooth.
I wasn't there when they power washed the cream off the top to expose the aggregate, but this is what it looks like afterwards.
The chalk lines are guidelines for the joint lines in the rest of the slab. They let that cure overnight then came about Noon today to pour the slab with regular mix concrete.
A local guy owns and operates the business. He has one local young guy working on his crew. The rest is a family from Mexico, a father and his 4 sons. Communication was a bit rough, but they were all good guys and sure work hard. When the local guy looked at my drawing when they first started he looked up at me and said "You must be an engineer.". Yep, guilty as charged.
Screeding and floating the slab.
After it set up a little they started cutting the tooled joint lines.
And then broomed it. The pie segments are broomed from center to edge, the outer edge is broomed parallel with the perimeter.
They stripped the forms and were out of here in a couple of hours.
One guy will come back tomorrow AM to seal it and it will be done. And then I can get after building the deck stairs, planter boxes, and a cabinet for a drop in grill.
John
Re: A New Patio - Woodenfish - 06-17-2016
Looks great John!!!
Re: A New Patio - chips ahoy - 06-17-2016
Nice job, ya trying to cut in on 2beast?
Mel
Re: A New Patio - Wild Turkey - 06-17-2016
Did you use SketchUp? Sure beats the old pencil and India ink process.
Re: A New Patio - jteneyck - 06-18-2016
Yes, SketchUp. I use it for all my drawing now, large, small, simple or complex. Being able rotate things makes it easy to look at something form any angle you want. And being able to hide components and even whole layers makes it a lot easier to see into complex projects. I'm in awe of how the old timers designed complex structures with just pencil and paper. I have a feeling there were a lot of "Oh, we didn't see that problem." moments.
John
Re: A New Patio - Phil Thien - 06-18-2016
jteneyck said:
I had a patio poured about 25 years ago. The contractor did about everything wrong and I was too young and stupid to know any different at the time.
You're ahead of me by about 5-7 years.
How thick was that old slab near the house?
Re: A New Patio - jteneyck - 06-18-2016
Looked like a pretty constant 4" everywhere when they tore it out. Same with the new one.
John
Re: A New Patio - brnhornt - 06-19-2016
Wow! Looks great!