quikrete mold for outdoor patio (advice)
Hello all! Just looking for a little advice. Me and my girlfriend are thinking of tearing up a dead part of her yard which constantly gets washed out this weekend and installing a patio of sorts using this quikrete mold. http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...15-286-6921-32 The area we want to complete is 9x16. It's slightly uneven and runs uphill, so we thought about getting a tiller to rip some of the dead area up then smoothing it out and leveling it before starting. Are there any more words of wisdom anyone could give? Neither of us have done anything like this before. Thanks a ton! Rskillz, My wife, myself and a friend used exactly that mold (actually 4 of them) to put cobblestone look paths all around our back yard in VA, about 8 yrs ago. We poured something like 75-80 bags in one day. I did all the mixing and wheelbarrowing, they did all the filling and forming. I have never been so dirty, tired, and sore in my life. We used a 4 cu ft electric mixer, i think, with 3 bags per load, so each load did about 3 forms. Ok that said, it came out absolutely great looking. You'll need at least 2 or 3 moulds, so you can work on the next one as the first sets. Make sure you vibrate the form with a finish sander or tap it well with a mallet to eliminate voids under the edges and sides. We also rinsed the moulds after each use and sprayed them with a spray cooking oil to help them release. We didn't do any leveling of the hard soil, just put down weedblock fabric and poured on top. We were looking for a slightly rustic uneven look. You would need to do that. You'll need to go back a few minutes after removing the form to smooth the edges and tops of the blocks, otherwise they will be pretty rough. I'd recommend doing one or two as practice, before you start doing the ones in place. Just throw down a tarp or some cardboard and try a couple. For you use, you'll probably need to dig out the area and put down gravel and sand. I'll leave that info to one of the Pro's. The instructions will tell you how many bags you'll need. Renting an electric mixer might be required. Be advised, hand mixing is going to be pretty slow. You might want to look at the precast type of pavers, could be a better way to go for you. While I think it would be far easier (especially after what you'd described) to just grab pre-made stones from Lowes and clear the ground and lay them, we both thought the quikrete mold would look better and would be fun to do. I suppose the fun part is idealistic but it does look nice. We couldnt find any cobblestone looked stones to use that matched the mold-type. How big was the space you did? A lot bigger/smaller than 9x16? Well, the paths were about 24 wide, cause I could roll my push mower on them, and we had some wider spots for benches, plants, in front of the potting shed, etc. Total probably about 125-150 feet long. So lets say it was about 300 sq ft, and thats probably on the low side. Yours is 144 sq ft. Like I said, the forms will tell you how much concrete you need per fill, then you can calculate bags. From what I see, you'd be looking at somewhere around 35 80lb bags, and that works out about right with what I remember doing. So if you don't mind lifting, mixing and pouring 2800 lbs of concrete (oh, and the weight of the water added)....it's not too bad. Here's their info page if you haven't been to it. http://www.quikrete.com/PDFs/Project...pingStones.pdf Also, using the liquid tinting will make will help the stones look a little more natural, esp if they don't get a lot of sun to bleach the color out. I used charcoal black, and probably should have gone heavier on it, for more color.
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