Hearth Pour

[mleuck]

I have to pour the hearth by hand. How much time will I have to mix and pour the concrete before the concrete begins to set?

Thank you

Michael

[Gulf]

First: Will you have some help? And, what is your general physical condition .

[mleuck]

I will be doing the job myself and am in very good condition.

[Gulf]

It is not how quick the concrete will set up. It is how well you will fair. The concrete will be fine, as long as you place it in layers and don't stop for very long. With bagged concrete, it will take two people about 4 hours to do the job by hand. 2 1/2 hours with a mixer. You need to enlist some help. Hire a dependable neighborhood kid or two. Promise some friends future pizza and some end of the day beer. But, get some help....... Seriously!

[mleuck]

Good advice. Thank you! I will seek assistance. I will be using a mixer, so all should be fine. I was worried about the concrete.

[Gulf]

Great! You scared me when you wrote "by hand". I know that we are in the days of ready mix, but I go back to the days when a cement mixer was considered modern .

Since you will be using a mixer, and will have some help, you will be fine. I used a mixer to pour mine, and I used bagged concrete. I elevated my mixer on a couple of short saw horses and scaffold boards to where I could dump it directly into the form. I had a sturdy bench to stand on to work the mixer. I had my bagcrete on the back of my pickup truck right at the mixer. Doing a little prep work saves a lot of grunt work .

Good luck and be careful.

[RandyJ]

I mixed 72 bags in 2 hrs with a mixer. When I got done I was thinking that I thought it would be a lot harder than it was. I also did 38 bags by hand in a wheelbarrow with a ho in about 2 hrs as well. Firs was with one helper and second was by myself.

Randy

[joeykramer]

just did mine this weekend, 24 bags with a rental mixer for Home Depot, and it took about 2.5 hours from start to finish. i had 2 people help. one mixed the concrete, I shoveled it from wheelbarrow to the hearth and the other used a hoe to spread it around.

[JRPizza]

Mleuck, if you can find a helper that has done concrete work before you will be better off, as I am guessing from your questions you have not done it previously. I was ready to do the job myself, or at least without any technical support, but I think my hearth turned out better because I had help that knew what they were doing. I probably would have mixed the concrete a little too dry and overworked the surface ;-)
I was going to put raise my mixer and dump directly into my form as Gulf suggested, but I mine's from Harbor Freight and it pretty much dumps straight down. I was trying to devise some kind of chute to direct the concrete out of the mixer, but ended up just dumping it into a wheelbarrow next to the job. We had 3 guys, two to shovel from the wheelbarrow and one to continually mix. Where was almost zero down time - by the time we shoveled the wheelbarrow empty and spread the load around the form the mixer was ready to dump again.