Find Ideal House

www.fihouse.com

How To Calculate The Amount of Concrete You Need to
by Konkratar Seifener
http://www.realconcrete.com

Calculating how much concrete it takes to build your
patio is really easy.

In order to calculate the amount of concrete you need,
you must decide how big of a patio you want to build. Even
the most experienced contractors are often surprised when
they see something in person that they'd previously only
seen on a drawing, so its probably a good idea to mark the
outline of the patio that you want to build on your lawn to
make sure its the size you want.

The best way to layout the patio you want to add is to use
some white spray paint. All you need to do is to paint a
line that will represent the outside of your patio. You
don't have to be perfect, just put enough paint on the
grass where you can see the outline of your new patio.

Give yourself a few days to look at the outline of the
pation to decide if you like it or not. You might want
to change the size, the location or the shape. Is there
something else that you would like to change?

Changes made right now are cheap compared to making changes
after the forms are done and the concrete is ready to be
poured. Make sure that you make the changes you want in a
different color so you can see them clearly.

Now that you have decided on the size and shape of your
patio, you can start to determine how much concrete you
will need to do the job. This is called creating an
estimate of the cost and is not as hard to do as it sounds.

The first step is to calculate the area of the patio. You
do this by measuring the outside of your patio. For
example, the outside dimensions are 25 feet long by 20 feet
wide. The area is length x width so, the area is 500 sq. ft.
Now convert the thickness of the concrete from inches to
feet by dividing by 12. Most residential concrete is 4
inches thick, so the thickness in feet would be 4 divided
by 12 or 0.333 feet.

Now that you have everything in feet, you can calculate
the volume of the concrete that you need. Multiply the area
(500 Sq Ft) by the thickness (.3333f ft). The result is
166.666 cu feet.

All concrete is sold by the cubic yard. There are 27 cubic
feet in 1 cubic yard of concrete, so in order to get the
number of cubic yards you need just divide 166.66 by 27.
The total number of cubic yards you need is 6.17.

Concrete costs vary from $70 per cubic yard to as high as
$100 per cubic yard. (The concrete ready mix company and
any contractor you talk to will refer to concrete in terms
of yards instead of cubic yards, so don't get confused.)

Don't worry if you don't understand what I'm telling you.
All you need to do is to tell the concrete company what
you are using the concrete for and they will give you the
perfect mixture for your project and the weather
conditions. You only need to worry about the mix if you are
going to do the patio yourself.

I would not recommend that you attempt to make a pour this
large unless you have some experience with concrete or have
someone who can help you. 6 cubic yards is a lot of
concrete to place and finish, especially if you are in your
back yard and have to wheelbarrow it.

You would need a crew of at least 5-6 people to get this
poured and finished before the concrete cures. You don't
want to end up with almost $500 worth of concrete
that you have to break up and send to the dump. Plus
breaking up concrete is a lot of hard work.

A fair price for a patio this size varies from region to
region, so you just need to call a couple of different
contractors for a price. Don't choose the lowest price
because the lowest price is often someone who is going to
try to make up the difference in lower quality or cutting
corners in some way. Choose the price in the middle and
make sure to check references before you sign any contract.

Submit An Article

Get Exposure For Your Site! Advertise with us.
Click Here For Details on a Great Deal!

Would you like more information on house?
Sign up here for our mailing list. You will get great information before it becomes available on our website!