I need a 20 ft by 16 ft concrete pad for a pavilion. Should I use a concrete truck or quikrete? Costs are a factor.
In my area (Atlanta, GA) a cubic yard of concrete delivered by truck is ~ $165 + tax. If you order less than 6 yd3, there is a delivery fee of $125. My choice was to buy a used concrete mixer (6 cubic feet) for $200 from Craigslist, get the Portland cement, sand, and gravel, and mix it, 6 cubic yards. I did it in one day by my self. Then I sold the mixer back on Craigslist for $150.
The third option is mixing up your own concrete from Portland Cement, gravel and sand aggregate. That will be much cheaper than Quikrete, and probably a bit cheaper than a ready-mix truck. It's really the only way to go if truck access to the site is poor, or if you don't want to tear up the adjacent grass too much.
You need more than cement for a 16 x 20 pad. You need forms, iron and a lot of muscle to poor and smooth the pad. Mixing that much cement yourself will require the rental of a cement mixer(way too much to do by hand). Bette do some research before you get started.
This Site Might Help You. RE: Cement truck or quikrete? I need a 20 ft by 16 ft concrete pad for a pavilion. Should I use a concrete truck or quikrete? Costs are a factor.
Wasn't going to chime in on this one. But after reading what people said I figured giving you my experience would possibly be helpful. I had a large pad to pour. Not as big as yours but way bigger than I wanted to do by lifting bags of concrete into a mixer. I had that option and two other options. One you mention is to have a cement truck deliver it and pour it. Provided it can get close enough to do the pour OR you will have to run a wheelbarrow brigade back and forth from the truck to the pour site. A third option (and the one I went with) was to buy concrete ready mixed in one of those portable mixers. I bought 2 1/2 yards of concrete and towed the trailer home. It cost less than buying all those bags of concrete - so that made for an easy decision. Plus not having to hoist all those 80 pound bags into the mixer. The BIG truck would have cost about the same for the concrete BUT I would have had to pay a delivery charge. So I went with the trailer mixer and was able to pour out one wheelbarrow at a time and get the job done. All without having to do all that lifting or paying for delivery charges. Consider that. Hope this helps. 'av'a g'day mate. )
