A small mixer would work also. The only challenge for some is getting the mixer to their home and being able to use it in short time, so as not to pay high rental prices. To each their own.

I get it…. At 4”, you’d need 80 plus bags and that would take around 4h of mixing….. it looks great man… nice works🎉🎉🎉

Thank you for sharing. Everything you mention seems viable. I’m not sure about the pavers because of my lack of experience with them, but the rest seems on track. I have since added a roof structure over my patio and when drilling to install the 4” x 4” metal brackets there was no break away or crumbling, which I did have some concern about happening with the dry pour method. Also, to further clarify, these posts were placed on the corners. As I am now reaching a year since the the dry pour I have come to believe in this method more. Actually, I am sitting at a table on top of the dry pour in the video as I am writing this response. Bottom line. I am glad I dared to try this method. This patio has brought me and my family much joy. I wish you all the best.

@@justintimevlogs2492 My sections turned out to be about 3x8ft I layed down like a grid. each 3x8 is further divided with two 2x4s in the center creating a channel to match the other channels. So I thinking I am going to do the wet pour on the corners and dry in all the other sections. Will the wet and dry look the same?

I appreciate your polite response of disagreement with the method. Just like anything, there are proper and improper methods. So wet or dry works, but dry is not acceptable or the best practice in certain circumstances. For a certain segment of society the dry pour method is a viable option and will allow them to reach their objective. I have personally seen dry pours that were not planned and 5 years later are still there. (The one I am talking about is on a highly trafficked public road.

I mention the exact size in the video. It has been a year since this project and I don’t recall the exact dimensions.

Good question. The landscaping on the right helps to block some irrigation pipes and also a natural gas meter.

We live in the South...what frost.

60 bags of 80lb concrete.

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. By the way, I am a good guy. :)

Thank you for the helpful advice.

About 60 bags

Thank you for watching. I will make the video editor aware of your suggestion.

Thank you for the suggestion. I appreciate your support and encouragement of other peoples success with their own projects. Keep it up.

Great question. I believe it possibly could because of the way I prepped and executed my dry pour, but I would NOT recommend anyone use dry pour for a driveway. I would recommend and still do wet pour concrete for driveways.

Thanks 🤗

This unconventional technique is not for everyone or every situation. But let’s all be real, even wet pours have their limitations too.

Building codes require a wet pour for the application you stated. In theory, dry pour could work but there too are many “potential” points of failure in the dry pouring method that don’t warrant the effort and cost for a driveway, in my opinion.

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you for your excellent comment. I am planning a follow up video with an industry expert to answer many of the questions generated about dry pouring concrete. Your brilliant comment about bagged concrete and how it is chemically designed for water absorption is one of the areas we plan to focus to help people, especially those impacted by the naysayers, understand why this process is viable option when it comes to non loading bearing slabs. Thanks you again for stopping by and providing a helpful comment.

Contrary to what we are used to with typical wet pour, DO NOT PRE-WET!! You want the moisture to migrate down, not up. First and most important thing you need to do, is forget everything you know about doing regular wet mix concrete.

Dry sour is bs.

@@professorg8383 depends on how hot the day is.

@@arguswil No, that would be the case with wet pour but not dry pour. With wet pour you don't want the dry ground pulling water out of the wet mix as it will start to cure prematurely. But with dry pour you want the mix dry on the bottom and let the waterings be absorbed from the top down. If the ground is wet, moisture will be drawn up. That is exactly what you don't want. You want the mix completely dry until the water get absorbed down to it. When the water dies get down to the bottom, it is at optimum absorption to start curing, And dry ground will not pull water out to below optimum. Cement is highly hygroscopic. It will pull water out of the air. You don't want it pulling it from the ground as it will wet the bottom prematurely. Dry pour ends up using the minimum required water, much like a very dry mix. This makes for the strongest cure. With wet pour you want to keep some moisture for finishing. But with dry pour the "finishing" is down before you hit it with a drop of water. Never take a trowel to dry pour, you will screw it up. This is one of those things where knowledge of doing wet pour, will work against you. for the best dry pour, the first thing to do is to forget everything you know about wet pour!! Dry pour works almost completely opposite. A lot of concrete pros screw up dry pour because they can't clear their brains of what they learned about wet pour. It doesn't seem right to them so they keep trying to "fix it", but that just screws it up! Being used to ding wet pour is a handicap doing dry pour. In the end you have a slab with the optimum water content but how you get there is entirely different. I have watched many dry pour fail videos and in every case the fail us because they try to treat it like wet pour, You want dry ground for dry pour. If the ground is damp, you ill get better results putting some plastic down! I know this seems counter intuitive, but that's because your brain is wired by what you learned through experience. Wet pour works from the bottom up with finishing being the final step. But dry pour works from the top down, the final step is watering, and once you start, it is 100% hands off the slab. Yu don't touch it again for a couple days when you take the forms off. In dry pour, all the work happens before adding water but the great part is that it is not time critical. Watering needs to follow a strict schedule, buy it is easy. The key to watering is to add water slowly allowing water to slowly be absorbed from the top down. Each watering step uses very little water and you ant to avoid getting the surface so wet that water starts to collect, if it's that wet you put too much water on. Complete rookies often do better because thy follow the instructions exactly, never even thinking they know better,

Concrete guys, except me, generally go mad when they see someone talking about dry pour. I am hoping to post another video discussing the basic science behind concrete and why dry pours do work when done in a proven manner.

Thank you for your comment. I do believe with more experience a smooth finish is possible. As this was my first experience, I had a learning curve. To level out the areas needed, I used a product called LevelQuick RS which can be purchased at Home Depot. After the self leveling product dried I used New Crete to create a nicer finished look.

Thank you

@@justintimevlogs2492 any time

The dry pour slab will weigh the same as a wet pour slab once the concrete is fully cured.

Thank you.

I did dig out about 2” so I could have a 4” slab through out. I then wet the dirt and used a handheld compactor to make sure the ground was solid. I then poured the bags on top of the compacted dirt. So, no gravel.

@justintimevlogs2492 I'm in the pac nw Oregon where it rains quite a bit does it matter???

First of all, concrete is not an adhesive. I do promise you though that whatever you stick inside of it will not come out easily once it fully cures. There is no need to do any additional treatment to the pressure treated wood. It is advisable to make a small rebar cage around your 4" x 4" post, so the concrete will have more strength to hold the post as the weight of the roof will create tension. I encourage you to continue to do your research on best practices before this weekend. I wish you the best and thanking you for the opportunity to chat with you.

Good question. Simple answer, I am not sure I would. If you were to try it then please be sure to make your slab 4" thick and allow the slab to cure for a least a month, if not longer, to fully cure. Also, I assume you are talking about the pergola's one can buy at the big box stores.

Michael Build successfully used anchors on a sill plate with a dry pour. I agree, with the OP on all points for best results.

Heavy rains??? The more moisture these get the harder they cure. The only way frost will crack them is the same as a wet pour. Poor base and no drainage and ALL concrete will crack. Do you have extensive evidence that a well done dry pour won't hold up "in rain" or frost.Doubtful.

You account for the slope with your frame. Had I planned to film this dry pour from the beginning, you would have seen me using a long 2" x 4" with a 7' level to make sure there is a pitch from one side of the frame to the other.

@justintimevlogs2492 excellent thanks for the comment. Me and the MRS are planning to do a 12x12 slab with a walkway. Just to put some lawn furniture and a medium weight gazebo and do not want water puddling. CHEERS!!

Great question. For me, I did not need a lot of water from the top. I made sure to water the ground before I started so the lower parts of the slab would wick up the moisture from the ground. Also, when using bags of concrete the moisture in the air helps in wetting the concrete. I have a video coming out soon discussing this process with an industry expert. I did give my slab about 5 minutes of watering, which I explain in the video. Yes, there was some puddling. I did come back out about 2 hours later and watered the slab again in the same manner. I wish you all the best and thank you for your question.

The total cost for materials was about $640.

Thank you for expressing your opinion kindly. The point of the video was about dry pour and seeing if it is a viable option for DIYERS. The other two slabs next to the dry pour slab were poured in the traditional manner. Also, without factual data we need to be careful what we express, as traditional poured slabs crack too. So in summary, if a person follows best practices for a dry pour as one should for a wet pour, there is a good chance the slab will be fine. As stated in the video, these slabs our not for structural building. The dry pour slabs are for the simple uses of concrete, i. e. slab in front of shed, short entryways, barbecue, etc.

Once a dry pour cures, it's not simply going to turn to weaken with age. Somehow I doubt you have monitored dry pours over the long haul, so on what basis do you state it would it crack over time--any more that a wet pour might?

You are the best painter in the world. So thankful for you.

Thanks so much!

No, the amount of bags should be the same or very close to the same.