You learn something new every day!

[2Loose]

3 of us did a two ton patio in a day...I had 6 hot baths and lots of pain killers in 3 days before I could move properly again.

Getting a mixer lorry to deliver is the right way of doing it...you live and learn.

 

[cyberknight]

I ned to realy my patio and i have been trying to just us e sand to level the bad slabs out but i think i am fighting a loosing battle.

Am i best just to rip them up and relay them using blobs of cement tapped down level?

How much does ready mix cement cost , i have about 50 2x2 slabs worth to relay and i am half considering just turning the lot into a cement patio !

 

[gbb]

I ned to realy my patio and i have been trying to just us e sand to level the bad slabs out but i think i am fighting a loosing battle.

Am i best just to rip them up and relay them using blobs of cement tapped down level?

How much does ready mix cement cost , i have about 50 2x2 slabs worth to relay and i am half considering just turning the lot into a cement patio !

It can give a fairly good result. I did mine that way, an area about 10ft x 20ft. It was good untouched, compacted soil so i just skimmed some sand over it and laid the slabs on cement dobs. 90% of its still perfect about 8 years later, but a couple of slabs have cracked, perhaps where they're not supported well underneath. Or perhaps they were just weak slabs anyway ?
Mind, mine were just those 12x12 inch slabs. I put a large dob of cement down at each corner so 4 slab corners were on each dob...and a dob in the middle of each individual slab.

 

[gbb]

Pah, reading some of this reminds me of my days on sites in the mid/late 70s.
We used to get a artic load of bricks, you had to unload by hand, no jibs, no hydraulic grabs. Grab maybe 6 or 8 bricks at once and throw them down to your mate who had to catch them and stack them. We'd have a crew unloading a lorry that way, maybe took a couple of hours. I remember one driver was about 60/65, he could pick up more, throw more bricks, for longer than any of us. We were all 17 or so.
Unloading ultra heavy 3x2 paving slabs was the worst, they were back breakers. A whole freeking lorry of them all by hand.
Artic loads of bags of cement. Not your pussy little 25kg bags you get nowadays, 50kg i should think. Walk up to the trailer, someone on it would lay the bag on your shoulder and you'd walk with it maybe 10 yards to the store...over and over again
Hod carrying ? did that for a bit, whoa, you sway like a tree in a gale at first it's so wierd.

I remember going home one day and stripping off my shirt as i came in. My mum looked shocked...christ, you're a solid knot of muscle. Wish i still was
Got some memories...and a wrecked back

 

[XmisterIS]

Pah, reading some of this reminds me of my days on sites in the mid/late 70s.
We used to get a artic load of bricks, you had to unload by hand, no jibs, no hydraulic grabs. Grab maybe 6 or 8 bricks at once and throw them down to your mate who had to catch them and stack them. We'd have a crew unloading a lorry that way, maybe took a couple of hours. I remember one driver was about 60/65, he could pick up more, throw more bricks, for longer than any of us. We were all 17 or so.
Unloading ultra heavy 3x2 paving slabs was the worst, they were back breakers. A whole freeking lorry of them all by hand.
Artic loads of bags of cement. Not your pussy little 25kg bags you get nowadays, 50kg i should think. Walk up to the trailer, someone on it would lay the bag on your shoulder and you'd walk with it maybe 10 yards to the store...over and over again
Hod carrying ? did that for a bit, whoa, you sway like a tree in a gale at first it's so wierd.

I remember going home one day and stripping off my shirt as i came in. My mum looked shocked...christ, you're a solid knot of muscle. Wish i still was
Got some memories...and a wrecked back

Apparently they're not allowed to sell those any more because of what Stephen Fry accurately calls "F***ing health and f***ing safety".

 

[Headgardener]

1 50kg bag at a time is nothing, when my dad was a lad doing his electrical aprenticeship one of his jobs was to go to the builders supplier which was about a hundred yards away, and get the plaster for filling chasing in walls. Now these weigh 1cwt a piece and he used to bring two back, one on each shoulder, most days.

 

[asterix]

That was in Yorkshire, right?

When I worked on the docks I stayed in the office and lifted nothing heavier than a pen but it was disturbing how many dockers in their 40's and 50's had fused vertebrae.

Actually I did do some hold work but only at weekends and it was mostly boxes of fruit. One of my colleagues got busted for trying to walk past security with a few oranges he should have eaten first.