Pouring Our Concrete Pad

As told by Leesa Pomazi

Laying a gravel base

We decided that we would need a 10′ wide by 46′ long concrete pad for our tiny house. The concrete will be 3½” thick.

Also we decided on a 4′ wide by 9′ long pad for a ramp and back porch on the northwest end of the main pad leading to the back door.

It took 12 total yards of gravel. We had 6 yards delivered by Mt Hood Rock Products. So that load was split it up between the base and a driveway.

We ended up needing an extra 6 yards of gravel which I had to get by trailer 1 yard at a time. Also I had to spread out each load by hand which was obviously slow and tedious.

I rented a trailer from UHaul to haul the gravel, as well as a compactor from B&R Rentals to tamp down the gravel base.

After tamping, I had the gravel base. Next I would need to add some rebar for support.

Pouring the concrete

We used Volume Concrete from Portland to deliver our concrete.

The cool thing was that the concrete was mixed on the fly as it was being poured!

The mixer operator asked me what consistency I wanted, between 2 and 6. Evidently I looked at him funny like I had no clue what he was asking (which I didn’t!). Thankfully he explains to me (seemingly without passing judgement) that a 2 is a very thick mix and a 6 is a runny soup.

I guessed that a 5 would work and that seemed very thick. Luckily he could instantly change to a 6, which was much more manageable for me to spread.

We had 3 people working. One to spread the concrete as it came out of the machine and two to level it out.

It would have been better with one more person to help smoothing. Even at a 6 it set up quicker than we could smooth it out.