How much Ballast? Arrrggggg

[nibblitz]

Ive given myself a challenge of building a base for a 10'x8' Conservatory Ive bought. Ive been working out how much stuff I need for the concrete base with 3 course of bricks on footings around the outside... Oh my, unless Im really thick and crap at maths, Ive worked out I need 4 tons of ballast, 26 bags of cement, some bags of sand and quite a number of bricks.... 4 Tons of ballast ???? Knightmare, to get to my back garden will mean wheel barrowing it all from the roadside (50 metres away from my house) up a footpath then down the side into back garden... Arrrgggg... Somebody tell me Ive made a big boo boo with my calculations...

[J P S]

too braindead after a day at work to work it out but you cant get lorries that pump concrete, when they were building next door to work they were pumping it over huge distances, at one stage even pumping it into another pump and starting again!

might be an option?

[Big Sig]

Have a look here - http://www.source4me.co.uk/calculate_concrete_mix.php

[rich r]

Pumping costs a fortune, and they won't generally do it for something as small as a conservatory base. We had to wheelbarrow it from the truck on the drive to the other end of the garden when we build our kennel block. Though we did borrow a couple of mates and wheelbarrows to make it easier.

I'd have thought for 3.5m x 2.0m x 0.225m you'd only need 3 tonnes of ballast. The rule of thumb that I've always used is 1.5 tonnes of ballast for every 1 cubic metre of concrete. That's with a 4:1 ratio of ballast to cement.

For that quantity though, you might find it's close to working out cheaper and easier to get the concrete delivered rather than making it up on site.