Laying a Concrete Floor
Adding a new room is fun and exciting but making a new garage for all your tools and man cave is even more exciting. You need a concrete floor but don't want to have someone else do it for you because this is your room, your cave. You can do this all. You need is some basic tools and a trip to the hardware store. Some print out instructions would be great too. Don't forget a weekend free so you can get it all done so you don't have it half done and then never get back to it. When finding good and accurate instructions that will give you play by play is a little harder to do than to be done. Make sure that you look around so you know more that just the general idea of what you are about to do. You can't afford mistakes when it comes to concrete. It's quite final in a figure of speech. Find the instructions that show you exactly what you need to know and nothing less. You don't want to think you know what your doing and end up with a pile of dirt that is nothing like concrete.Preparing to Lay the Concrete Floor
You need to make sure that you have a clean and clear space for all your tools and materials. A table or bench would work quite nicely. If you have to go searching for something and forget what's going now at the time you may mess up and cause something that can't be reversed. You need to stay focus at all times. Drinking a beer with the guys would be better to be left at the end off your project. Before you start you need to know exactly were you are going to put it exactly or you may put to much or not enough and you could make it look all lopsided and messy. There might be bigger bumps that you will trip over and cause more damage to you that the floor. It is concrete after all. That will put a greater risk on your floor getting ruined and you will have to redo it in a couple of years. Why take a chance in that when you can just do it right the first time. No reason to waste money. When you figure out where its going you need to churn up the soil and dirt so that when the concrete is dried and in the long run the concrete will not crack and crumble. The best thing to use is a tiller. Just roll the tiller in the marked off work area in straight horizontal lines, back and forth. Make sure it's really churned up so that the dirt is nice and loose. Once that is done, smooth out the soil and pat down flat.
Mixing the Concrete
Get your wheel barrel and your bag of cement mix with your gravel and sand. Put the recommended amount of drain gravel over the marked off work area, this is usually a few inches or so. The sand is what needs to be the next step. Place down the recommended amount of sand just as the gravel mix. Next, set up the stacks in a grid fashion with the string from each stack cress-crossing like a checker board. This is to show you the guidelines of where you want your cement. This also shows people where they need to stay away from. Once done with that, get you cement mix and follow the directions on the bag or the internet. Whatever one is more comfortable for you. Mix the cement in the wheel barrel so you can move the cement back and forth where your work area is.
Laying the Concrete Floor
Once made, dump the concrete mix underneath the grid strings. Do not pour the cement on the strings if possible. The strings are just for your guide. Once you have mixed up your mix, take a shovel and spread it out evenly over the work area. Make sure your corners are involved so you don't want to have to wait and do it over again. The concrete you pour should match the floor height around your work area. This will make the rest of your project much easier. Now you need to let the concrete set up. This is when the moisture is to rise up and evaporate from the surface. Take a break this may take a while but do not leave the area. Once you can see that the cement has set and the water has vanished. Then you need to get down and start to smooth out your cement with a trowel. With the trowel flat on cement, move it back and forth in a waving motion so that you smooth out all the bumps and bobbles. Starch out as far as you can and swing back and forth coming back to you. If there is a hole or some missing cement, grab some of your extra cement and smooth it over the hole and make sure it all fits the same. So you now know the general bases of how to lay a concrete. So the advantages of a concrete are that it's very cheap and the materials are at any hardware store. It's super easy to lay and easy to maintain. It's also really really good against wear and tear. The disadvantages are that the floor can be very cold. You only get one color. Grey. That's the concrete flooring instructions in a nut shell. Do remember to follow your instruction that you find exactly. No reason to mess up on your cave. Right?