Pouring concrete with a pump

Thursday was the day: the concrete went in.

Preparation

In my budget I’d simply found a tool on the internet, but what I really wanted was someone through word of mouth who could help me. I asked my father first, and he recommended Colijn betontechniek . I got Eimert on the phone and it was sorted in no time. A WhatsApp message with what I needed, and a week later he could come. The price was lower than the tool’s, so that was absolutely fine by me.

Pouring

At 7 am he was at the door to lay out the hoses, and he was busy. He still had plenty of cubic metres to do that day and would be flitting about until at least midnight. The concrete was due at 7.30, so it all went pretty quickly, and at 7.30 on the dot the concrete mixer was there and 5 minutes later he was pumping. A concrete rake was pushed into my hands and I had to make a sort of pumping movement so the end result would be smooth. The better I did that, the smoother the floor would be. I’d shovelled quite a few cubic metres of sand those weeks, but this movement was bloody hard work!

While working, he told me he had also poured for my friend the landscape gardener and that he was quite precise. I’d known that for longer than today, but I also wondered how precise counts as good when pouring concrete.

Within half an hour it was in, and he went off to hose down the pump while I got to carry on with the rake for a bit. It was exactly enough concrete. The last little barrowful that came out of the pump really did belong in there too. I’d just already handed back the rake when I tipped that concrete in. I tried to smooth it a bit with a batten, but that didn’t go very well. Despite that, Eimert said it had gone in well and off he went. Hey presto, at 9 am I was back with a cup of coffee doing my own work.

Result

The next day I went on it to inspect, and there really was an odd bump in the concrete and it wasn’t entirely level. I got the feeling that my friend the landscape gardener was smart to be so precise, because if this layer is laid nicely, what follows goes better too. Given how busy he was, Eimert will of course have quickly considered it good enough for a simple floor slab for a garden office. For me, just another lesson that I shouldn’t simply believe everyone, should judge for myself based on what I see, and should have tried a bit harder.

Very happy with the work and the price of Colijn betontechniek