My wood storage area leaks mostly from runoff from the driveway. There is a concrete pad about in front of it. I am thinking about putting a sort of speed bump between the concrete pad and the driveway to funnel the water toward a gravel area.
My original thought was to use concrete but don't know how hard it will be to curve the top. I will have to push 2 wheelers and other things across it occasionally. Is there a better material to use for this or can I kind of thicken the concrete so I can form it.
What about cold asphalt? I think you can get it at Home Depot unless you happen to drive by a large pile waiting for road repair and a few buckets full fall into your trunk.
You can mound and shape concrete freehand if you go easy on the water and make a thicker mix. The mix in the bag works ok BUT it's a lot better if you enhance it a bit. They seem to be skimping on materials so I like to add a couple of shovels of 1/2" gravel plus a shovel of portland cement to each bag. (As a former concrete inspector I'm picky about my concrete)
If you mix it on the dry side (but thoroughly) you can mound and shape it with a trowel or even a piece of board. After it starts to set up, trowel for the desired surface finish. One way to make it look more uniform is to form sections temporarily with 2x4s, fill with concrete, then remove the forms and shape the sides - this will make sure the same volume of concrete goes into each segment.
If making a bumper I would also do two things, one, drill holes every few feet in the existing pavement and hammer in some short pieces of 1/2" rebar that will stick up into the concrete and keep it from sliding. Two, embed a piece of rebar or two down the length of the berm to hold it together if/when it cracks. You can wire the rebar to the short posts but I like to weld it. Maybe add a little wire mesh too.
Holler at me if you want some help. I think I have the tools and everything except the bags of concrete mix. The laser level could help ensure the height is right. If you haven't done so, you might mock up the proposed path of the berm with weighted 4x4s or something and watch the water flow during a hard rain.
After any concrete is put down I always cover it with poly to keep it from drying out while curing - that will make it stronger. I leave the plastic in place for at least one week. I have plenty of extra plastic sheeting if you want some - I bought a bunch of rolls when I found some salvage at a give-away price. Could even reuse what I just pulled off the concrete floor on the new peacock house.
If they had transporters, I would beam on over and have a look at it. I did residential work for 30 years. I generally tell people not to do it themselves, because you are stuck with what you do. If it is flowing under the mud plate/sill or what ever framers call it, I think I would peel off the siding, put down a big bead of silicon caulking, install some metal flashing , making sure there is squeeze out in front, cut maybe 1/2 inch of the bottom of the siding, and seal again. If you build a berm, rain can and will go over the down hill side. You may be able to make a quarter round berm that goes up to the siding. You may even be able to find some thing to install rather than concrete. A mortar mix might work well also, but you should still seal up against the framing plate, and seal both top of the mortar mix as well. You could use a piece of PVC pipe as a trowel. Some will add betanite or how ever it is spelled to the mix because when wet it expands and makes a good seal. Regular concrete is fairly porous. You could form a curb, to go directly against the siding, but it needs flashing and caulking at the bottom. Lots of ways to do it.
We can both fire up our transporters and take another look. Mine only needs set for a about 85 miles.
Some time ago I carried the big laser level over and scoped out the contours - the problem is drainage from the driveway comes down onto a paved area between the driveway and building. The building sits in a low spot. I think John plans the berm will deflect the water to the side before it has a chance to build up in the lower area. I don't think anything done right at the building would help (other than raising the building about 8"!)
The long term solution is to put put in a drainage system to catch and remove the water. The yard slopes off on the other side of a gentle swell in the yard that would make a good drainage target. I have a backhoe and am not afraid to us it!
Rather than installing a berm or curb to divert the water, how about using a ditch or it's gentler kinder brother, a swale? The "trick" here is to give the water someplace it would rather go.
The problem is the concrete slab is not even remotely flat and butt's directly against the metal siding on the building. Trying to divert it there simply wouldn't work because the water would just puddle up. The concrete dips in the middle. I'm planning on putting the speed bump at the joint of the concrete and asphalt. There is a tiny ditch there now, about an inch wide at it's widest. At that point the driveway is reasonably flat and so I'm building the speed bump right there to divert the large amount of water from the driveway over to a gravel area. The rain that lands on the concrete is just going to have to stay. CAn't do much about that right now.
In the long run my plans are to tear down those 3 half ass structures, poor a slab and build a sort of shallow 3 car garage just to hold wood, lawn tools, splitter, stump grinder and other assorted things. When I do that I will make the slab high enough that water won't ever be a problem again.
that would be pretty cool but would probably be hard to make it water tight to the drastically curved concrete slab. Every time I look at that slab I think who in the world poured this and why did they do it the way they did. It slopes almost a foot in some areas and has a depression in the middle which helps funnel the water to my wood shed.
John, as a home inspector I see this all the time. The pre-existing buildings and driveway have put you in a tight spot. You may be right that the real long term solution is to tear it all down and start over.
Its difficult to pour a "thin" piece of concrete over existing concrete and not have it fail in numerous ways. Generally speaking, it will not adhere to the old concrete. Over time water will seep under it and in winter freeze and pry the two apart. It will also crack into pieces. (That's why walk have grooves in them. "control joints" They don't prevent cracking, they control it and cause the walk to breakup into acceptable patterns.) Any piece of concrete three times as long and it is wide will crack. The reinforcing JKJ mentioned does not stop it from cracking, but causes it to distribute tiny cracks throughout instead of a few big ones.
My suggestion is to look at the existing crack you have now and see if you can widen and deepen it to maybe 3 or 4" and make it divert the water.
You have run into one of the hardest things to do. Working with a "level" lot and making the water go away.
My cousin lived just up the road from a bridge project when they were building Interstate 155 in Central IL. He goes down to the project and mentions that if they have a bad load of ready mix, or any reason to dump the ready mix, they could just bring it up to his place. I don't remember the timing, but they soon call and tell him that 3 trucks are on their way, and they can't use it since the forms have an issue. The trucks will be here in 15 minutes. Rodney had not prepared anything, so he now has three trucks backed up to his feed lot. He levels the mix with a tractor and loader, filling holes and whatever is there. He still laughs when he considers what someone will think when they have to dig up the 2' thick concrete some day. He also spent a ton of time washing that tractor!
>>> The reinforcing JKJ mentioned does not stop it from cracking, but causes it to distribute tiny cracks throughout instead of a few big ones.
In my experience the steel primarily holds the pieces together after they crack.
My concrete guy joked there were two things he guaranteed - that the concrete would set up and that it would crack. I told him another one he's started using: no one will steal it.
Doesn't apply much here, but the more steel you put in a slab the better. I used a 1'x1' grid in the maintenance bay area of my shop. I stick welded each junction and positioned the entire grid on blocks so it would be exactly where I wanted it. It is not reasonable to rely on the guys pouring the concrete to pull rebar or wire to the optimum position. My slab (24x62) has only tiny cracks in the control joints as expected.
For those who haven't seen it, you might not BELIEVE the amount of steel that goes into a major concrete structure.
I knew a man who dug out a basement under his house. He asked a concrete guy "How to finish Concrete". The guy says it can't be explained in 25 words or less, just get it ready and call me, I will finish if for you at a reasonable price. So, Late One Friday afternoon, The man with the basement has eight cubic yards or concrete dumped in through a window and then calls the finisher. The finisher was out of town. That basement still has the biggest cowpie of concrete anyone has ever seen in it.
Sounds like best bet is to band aid it for now, and fix it right later on. I will never forget a machinist who set up his own driveway slab. "It's dead level, spot on, dead flat!!!" Well, where is the water going to go??? If you are doing a berm, the mortar mix will be easiest to do. There are bonding agents that will help keep it in place for a year or so. Most common one looks like Elmer's white glue, and you paint the surface, and mix some in with the mortar. Saw cuts in the slab can help, and make it easier to tear out later, and a gas powered one from a rental place is much better than one for your circular saw... Dust mask, face mask, ear plugs... Maybe even run some masonry wire through it to keep it together when it dose crack.
robo hippy
Oh, I did see concrete that didn't set up... The computer dispatch got the mix wrong.....
This particular company had continual problems with 'quality'. One truck load would be gone within an hour after the truck showed up, and the next would be there till dark. One load would have lots of rock and almost no sand, and the next was the opposite... This went on for years. No idea why... When I quit concrete work, there were so many additives to combat the too quickly made cement, the concrete would be like trying to work silly putty. All the additives were supposed to 'make it easier to work'. Glad I don't do it any more... I figure I have pushed a bull float to Mars and back.... At least once...
Right out of school I got a job as an assistant Superintendent on a commercial site. There were two of us and we set up alternating pours fur days a week. Literally poured acres of slabs. One day a fully loaded truck sand right up to the drum. no chance of getting him out before the mix set. I ran down to the grocery store on the corner and bought all the sugar they had and we dumped it into the drum, And got the drum to turn enough to mix it in. Sugar destroys the bond in the cement. Once they got the truck out all they had to do was run the truck enough to dump the load at a dump site. And spend a couple of hours cleaning the drum.
My boss was thrilled, the concrete company was still upset but decided they had learned a new "trick". No body paid me back for the sugar.
I don't know how much sugar it takes or if there is enough in a Coke to ruin a whole batch, but I can tell that sugar will absolutely ruin concrete completely. It comes out like wet soup. Once it drys it is just a bunch of rocks and sand.
Salt is an accelerator, and sugar is a retardant. Not sure how long the sugar idea has been around, but saw it in the late 70's. We did use sugar water for doing exposed aggregate. 3 gallon spray can, 1 pound bag of sugar, spray it on after the slab is troweled, and fairly hard. Wash it off the next morning in cooler weather, later in the after noon in hot weather. worked pretty good and only effected the top. Now they have all sorts of fancy products to do exposed to sand finishes depending on what you want... I am a smart concrete finisher.... I don't do that $@#% any more....
