For everyone saying there wasn't enough water and/or a week wasn't long enough to wait, I cracked open a piece from a different dry pour project three weeks later (total of four weeks after pour). Check it out here: th-cam.com/video/7FKddDUtr1g/w-d-xo.html
When I do 3 foot deep fence post dry pours, I do a few important things differently: 1. Tamp as you go. Tamp the mixture together as you go (as you add) to eliminate voids 2. soak the area for a long, long time. I would put maybe a sheet of newspaper on top to keep the surface from being pitted, but since aesthetics aren't important I wouldn't stop hydrating from the start 3. I would just leave a slow mist or drip on a column like that, continuously hydrating, for a good 24 hours. Concrete is like a sponge and the water will get all the way to the bottom. We are naturally impatient so we want to just drench but the absorption rate is slow. A continuous mist that doesn't drip water directly onto it works fine. Set and forget until 24 hours. 4. I protect from drying, or just keep wetting it for a good long while.
I would say that if you care how it looks, mist it.... But mist it damn good. I don't know why they say wait an hour between waterings. Once it tuffens up a bit, start showering it good. Keep it wet! Don't take the forms off for a week. Spray your forms down first with 2 coats of pam cooking spray and let it soak into the wood. Keep it wet and covered for as long as possible. Concrete water cures fully in 28 days, it doesn't dry. Need more water and time to cure doing the dry pour. I'll be doing a slab dry pour test comparing wet mix.
There have been some surface flaking reported from those who apply too much water at the start of the wetting process. True or not, I have no idea. Cajun Country Living was addressing some previous comments on yesterdays video.
@@shawng8432 it's all pretty cool experiments. I have done a few undocumented dry pours on a small scale. They are solid, just not pretty, but I like the rough surface for traction in the winter
Thx for trying this but I'm not sure why people keep only estimating the amount of water used when they should be using the amount of water for each bag. For every bag of concrete, people SHOULD have a measured amount of water set aside to pour on the surface after the top layer firms. This is the only way to know how strong a dry pour can be because of actually using the correct amount of water for the entire process.
Fair enough. Thank you for the suggestion. with this video I was trying to test the way people are currently doing dry pour, which is clearly not optimal for concrete strength. I'll probably test again with measured water sometime next month.
Great comment Rotary. Tamping the material is also crucial, otherwise there will be air voids which will be weak spots leading failure. No different than a wet pour. The principles of concrete all still apply.
I see there are a few things that would have made this a success, I am NOT a professional but I do have experience with regular concrete. I noticed that when you started with the water that you were following instructions for a pad/large flat surface where you didnt want to upset the visual look. What I would suggest instead is to immediately add water and avoid the misting because this isnt 1-4in of material that needs water. This shoud have been watered down from the beginning so that the water had time to get to the bottom more evenly. Other than that I believe that letting it sit for 2 days after watering it that would have been a much better comparison.
Awesome! Thank you for spending the time and money to conduct the test again as many viewers requested. The video was very informative. I was curious how much of the bottom of the tube had cured from contact with the ground, glad you showed that part. I am slightly curious how the test would have gone if the tube had been fully submerged - would the interesting to see if the cardboard would have been soaled over time etc. But that doesn't matter much as no one is going to wait that long to use a pilon. Thanks again!
I think it probably would absorb more water if fully buried, but I worry that it wouldn’t be very strong or useful for a foundation. I may test it just for fun once I get my backhoe back in about a month. Thanks for watching!
@appalachianwoodhomestead these are supposed to be watered way more than what you did, & it's also recommended they be left for 30 days, as the dry pour curing method is different than wet. If you had a clear tube, you could've seen whether you were adding the correct amount of water, or after misting start measuring the amount to ensure you have enough to reach the bottom, bc each bag needs a certain amount, & what you added clearly wasn't sufficient.
@@leahrowe847 My wife and I were talking that it would be fun to do with a wood and plexiglass form. I've thought about measuring the water. I'm not sure that 2.5 quarts (the amount given for my bag) would have penetrated more in this narrow, deep tube. I'm also not sure how I'd sprinkle it evenly if I poured from a container. I'm wondering if maybe dry pour needs extra water added to ensure it saturates everything. Since it's usually done in slabs, it could be getting the extra moisture needed from the ground in other projects.
Good test now it's a dry pour test , i knew dry pour would not work for anything thicker than 6" . Even if it works mixing gives a better psi rating. Thank you so much for the test .
The low strength of dry pour, no mix is concerning. I'm trying a final test with layering dry pour, water, dry pour, water (no mixing) to see if that's at all worth using. I'm tempted to get something to measure PSI so I can see just how strong, or weak, the dry pour method is.
You really should do this and let it sit outside for a month or so. Fence post seem to get really hard after being in the ground for a long time. Also consider the red bag fast setting quikrete mix which says on the bag that it can be dry poured.
My local store doesn't sell Quikrete, only Sakrete. Pieces from all of my experiments are sitting out in the rain. Last we checked, my wife could easily crumble parts with her hands. I think the stratification from lack of mixing or screeding will cause it to be sub-par, no matter how much water gets in it.
The misting method only is used for 4 " to do that kind of pour you would have to totally mist it till it's totally drenched because that's to far for the water to reach the bottom at that point for strength you would have to stay and continually drench it
A 19" slab? Who needs a 19" slab? As much as you tried to resist it i think for a foundation pillar you'd want to get the concrete in direct contact with the surrounding ground and have that soaked. My understanding is concrete is porous and water will slowly move through it Maybe you should do a slab pour where it goes from a few inches to a few feet thick, leave it a really long time - at least a month, if not several - during a time when there is plenty of moisture available to soak into the slab gradually. Then cut sections of the slab at various thickness and have them professionally tested.
I think for that particular shape, I would have just go full soak instead of waiting an hour between misting. Since the mix is a lot of sand, most of the water will drain off into the ground and whats soaked into the concrete will cure well. The crete will only accept as much moisture as it will absorb. The sand in the mix is the best draining medium. Of course a psi test afterward would test how strong the cure is. Crete will cure hard with just about any amount of moisture. Getting the correct psi depends on the amount of moisture, time, and evaporation rate. This is my uneducated guess based on sculpture work with crete.
For it to mix well dry pour is still mixed when you pour it but to make a tube you would have to totally drench it all the way through the difference is to make sure when doing this way is to totally drench it then come back in 1 hours and doing it again 1 hour drench 2 hours drench then fully water it let the water drain then do it again then repeat wait 2hours and drench one last time
I guess everybody needs to do a video on this and it was somewhat interesting to see this one but I don’t think anybody would even consider doing a dry pour more than I would say 10 inches max.
You don't know until you try. I wanted to find out how deep it could reasonably go (and tested it in isolation from the ground on purpose). I was hoping to find an easier way to do piers for a cabin I'm building this summer, but this is a "shortcut" I won't be using.
Thanks for showing this. I think it would have been better to just soak it from the beginning. It might have worked. I'm just going to mix it. I don't see this method saving any time or effort. I certainly don't want to chance it. The foundation is the most important part of a build.
To be honest, based on what I've seen so far I'd hesitate to make anything more than a chicken run or walkway with dry pour. I think slabs are a bit different since they're getting a lot of moisture from the ground, but the stratification is pretty bad and leads to a low quality result.
You're supposed to repeat the shower twice for every inch of slab. So a 48" slab would take 96 hours. If you were able to do that straight through at 8 hours per day, this project would not be complete for 12 days. That's why it failed.
Since the concrete is in a tube and contained, you didn't have to saturate the concrete a couple of times. You could have just poured 1 1/4 gal of water slowly, for a 60lb bag of concrete.
Concrete has 50% strength at 2 days and is rated for driving on. You can plainly see the difference in quality and strength when compared to cement that was mixed (in the tube) when you watch one of my earlier videos.
MIXED concrete, maybe. The curing and strength times you cite are based on a the standard mix pour method. Just consider that slower hydration might cause the chemical curing process to be extended. It might take a month or more for full strength. And again, contractors would never use this method, this is for DIY people who don’t have the equipment to mix and pour but DO have time to wait for curing.
@@isabellavision Agreed that this method is absolutely not for serious construction. The only information I can find suggests that dry pour may cure and dry slightly more quickly than wet pour. It would be a very interesting experiment to run. Maybe I can use it as an excuse to get more fun tools.
@@appalachianwoodhomestead is it common practice to drill holes for anchors after 2 days? And for similarity if building a deck on one of those brackets that keeps the wood off the foundation, would they start construction after the 2 days or let it cure a little longer?
@@clintlickner People do drill after 24-48 hours, but typically don't put torque on anything for about a week. Your point is taken in that regard. However, the overall quality is also extremely poor. I still have a chunk sitting around and can try drilling it now that it's been longer, if you're interested to see that.
6:46 how much water per cubic inch did you pour. For that depth, you would have had to fill that top section 10 or 15 times to have enough water to soak to the bottom. Without the proper amount of water and curing time for the amount to mix, it is not a really fair demonstration. Not adding enough is like not adding enough water to dough. But still 19 inches is not bad at all.
Isn't the thinking with drypour that the cement will absorb water slowly over time? Since you isolated it from it's surroundings the only water it got was from the top and bottom. Is 2 days do you really think the cement got enough water from either direction even if every drop you put on it got absorbed?
I haven't seen anyone try to do a full tube of dry pour. 6" max depth maybe. You'd need to add water every bag or 2. In a dirt hole for a post, dry pour is completely fine. Don't need a tube. Even then, the entire depth (4' in Michigan) doesn't need to be filled with concrete. I would do 2 bags at bottom and 1 bag at top. I wouldn't even use a tube for a footing except a section at the top to get the concrete above grade and level. I'll be trying to do a dry pour on bare ground over a horizontally laid tube to extend my drive way culvert a few feet. Will be about a foot of gravel on top of the concrete. 12" culvert pipe is way over priced if you can find it and I don't need to buy 20' to only use a 3' section.
I tried in just about 6" sections in my third video. it didn't work well, either. Part of the problem is that it gets bad stratification as the gravel rises up, so there are lots of stratified layers.
I agree that this method should work for stepping stones. I highly recommend screeding to make sure it's level and to help push the rocks down. This will give you a nicer looking product that's stronger, too.
Many thanks to Appalachian Wood for conducting this experiment, it was very enlightening and educational. IMHO comparing dry pour to wet pour is the same as comparing a Harbor Freight trailer to a flat bed. Dry pour is fine for small DIY projects, however no one in their right mind is going to want to build a multistory office building using dry pour with current technology. On the other hand, why pay contractor rates for a home sidewalk or garden shed slab when dry pour is fine. Plus, why miss out on that personal satisfaction of doing it yourself. Wet pour is for commercial projects and the overwhelmed, lazy, and/or timid homeowner. Dry pour is for the cash-conscious do-it-yourselfers. Everyone just needs to stay in their lanes.
It doesn't have to be dry pour or contractors. I think small scale mixing, like with a drill attachment in a bucket (or even with a piece of rebar), and wet pouring in small increments yields a much higher quality product. This costs negligibly more than a straight dry pour, but will bring stronger, longer lasting results. I personally might dry pour stepping stones or a chicken run, but nothing as important as a garden shed.
1 - Roughly 5 quarts of water is needed per bag, you might have done one total gallon. 2 - Light moisture turned the dry concrete gray deep inside and it never got enough water to actually solidify. It needed to be actually wet. 3 - I wouldn't hammer an anchor into wet poured concrete until after full cure of 28+ days. 4 - Cylindrical type containers are going to allow water to leach quicker and further along the sides, then in the center area, thus causing the center area to only get moist - not wet as required. 5 - No amount of water would have leached down 4 feet in the time given. 6 - No person would try and fill a column dry that tall for any structural purpose. 7 - If pouring a column even wet, you must use rebar over 12" depth or it will crack/break just like the dry pour. 8 - Only a person that has never mixed concrete would believe this video.
The reason you were able to pull out the bolt and destroy the concrete, is you didn’t give it enough time to set up and harden. You can’t just do everything in 24 hours, you need six weeks of setup time for it to work.
After this experiment, I did some more research and realized that I needed to wait longer than two days. The recommendation is generally to wait a week before putting tension on the anchor bolt. Thanks!
Dont give up! Do one more test. All it will take is another not-fun clean up and goodbye to more of your own money! Hopefully this will produce more accurate and desirable water/concrete mix results than your last attempt using a hose and spray nozzle, which can't be easily measured or delivered. Also will provide evidence of how water does or doesn't permeate a volume of dry concrete mix that's thicker than a 4" slab configuration. Quickrete specifies 7 pints of water per 60 lb bag of the mix you used. As before, fill another 8" diameter x 4 foot Sonotube but with only two 60 lb bags. The column height will be about 31". No need to tap or vibrate. Then pour in all the ACCURATELY MEASURED water that Quickrete specifies for the two 60lb bags; 14 pints (1 gallon +3 quarts. Not from a hose, use a container. Let cure for 24 hours. Cross fingers, cut open the cardboard tube and destructive test.
Sakrete (what's sold in my area and what I used) requires 2.5 quarts per bag of the size I had, which is less than the amount you cited for Quickrete. I agree the hose can be difficult to measure, but this was an attempt to test the currently popular dry pour method, which uses misting and hosing instead of measuring. I sincerely doubt that this no-mix method, no matter how the water is measured, will result in a high quality product, but I'm willing to give measuring it a try at some point. Though I would wait at least 48 hours to cut it open, since that's when it's rated for vehicle traffic and has 50% of its final strength.
Without the correct amount of water, the cement is only partially hydrated, so there would be no way for the concrete to be as strong as any other fully hydrated method. Tamping the tube is important though because this is what allows the cement and fine aggregate to consolidate around the larger aggregate. Regardless of the method used, the same principles still apply.
Two weeks is a darn long time. Most people only wet cure for about a week. No, I didn't do that for this video because that really wasn't the point. I watered at frequent intervals over the course of one day. I was attempting to see how deep the water penetrated during that time since many people only water dry pour for a day or two. It could be a fun experiment to see if I could actually get the entire tube form worth of concrete saturated with a dry pour, no mix method.
First I want to say thanks for the test and video. However I feel there is some problems presented here. Dry pour for fence posts is used all the time. I think the way presented here doesn't do dry pour any justice. It gets stronger over long periods of time. Eventually it will have full coverage and the concrete will fully harden and cure close to max psi strength (over one month). Doing a 24 hr comparison is basically a worst case scenario between the 2 methods. Even wet pour after 24 hrs to me is very weak and brittle. I have had to wait over 2-3 days before removing wet pour from concrete molds, etc. Also your curing and drying explanation is very incorrect. Copied from the internet here is a guideline for wet pour (conventional). When waiting for concrete to dry, keep these timeframes in mind: 24 to 48 hours - after inital set, forms can be removed and people can walk on the surface 7 days - after partial curing, traffic from vehicles and equipment is okay 28 days - at this point, the concrete should be fully cured Dry pour takes longer (as the water penetration is not as fast and complete as wet pour) I have many dry pour posts that if you pull them out of the ground, the concrete around those suckers are just as hard and strong as the ones that would be wet poured. The problem I think in this video is time and water penetration. Had the tube been set in the ground and the wet ground was giving moisture from all sides it would yield much better results. I understand this is a test but I believe the testing methods here is flawed and give poor results.
I completely agree that setting it down into the ground would result in better moisture absorption and a stronger product. Water penetration was low. I was attempting to test whether the "traditional" dry pour watering method and schedule could result in a satisfactory product with a tube. I think that's unlikely. A post hole in the ground (and at a smaller overall depth) is a different situation. I did remove the tube at two days. I thought the video stated that in a caption. I don't have an accent, but English is my second language so sometimes I get words muddled. People have told me that dry pour takes longer to cure, but I went based on my bag's statement that it was safe for vehicle traffic and at 50% strength after 2 days. Thank you for taking the time to leave a helpful and thoughtful comment.
I honestly dont think people are trying to make 4ft columns with the dry pour method. The regular way of mixing concrete or bringing in a concrete truck. Is how 4ft piers and house foundations are made. People have made shed pads, sidewalks, carport slabs and so on. So 1"- 4" slabs done the dry pour way is great. I will be making a 3"- 4" thick parking pad on my off grid property using the dry pour method. When it rains it's too muddy from the truck to my mobile home.
This one was only a couple of days since I was testing to see how deep water would penetrate with a basic dry pour type watering schedule. I tested another layered version at a one week cure and then again at a total of four weeks. Those are in two other videos.
If you had watered in between bags and not run 30 gallons of water through the top layer washing away any strength. Also it takes a week or longer to cure. You said concrete is cured in two days
Blaming the system when you don't follow directions is not a fault of the system, it is the fault of the user. Clearly you have not watched enough of Cajin Country Livin's videos of doing dry pour, as you did not follow the basic rules for wetting, at all. They say you need 2 showers once per inch of thickness of the pour spaced out by 2 hours each. (See th-cam.com/video/_50MXEHr678/w-d-xo.html) which would requires days of showering to fully wet the concrete and trigger the chemical reaction that causes it to harden. I imagine in this specific application that placing a micro-drip waterer on top and running it continually for a couple days would probably be okay after the second shower and would result in full penetration of the water in sufficient quantity to fully wet the concrete mix. BTW, using a oscillating saw (saber saw, saws-all, without a blade is a great method for vibrating a form to get the material to settle, eliminating voids.
2 days is nowhere near sufficient. It takes weeks for concrete to fully cure In addition, concrete should be tamped down firmly. Obviously, such a large depth of concrete needs lots of water.
The only thing I see differently is in every other dry pour video I've seen they use quikrete and not normal concrete, and they did every hour or two not 20 minutes,
I used Sakrete, which is a different brand name for the same style product (not "normal" concrete). I reduced the interval between watering because of the small surface area. I couldn't apply as much water at one time.
5:30 " the concrete is cured" No, at two days the concrete is nowhere close to cured. The failure indicates insufficient water. Best to put a drip irrigation on it and keep a pond on it. The advice to do layers for dry pour is based on what? IMO it will not produce a strong foundation. The general rule for curing is 7 days for a fully hydrated paste which produces 70% of rated strength. See American Concrete Institute ACI 308R-16 "Because hydration can proceed only in saturated space, the total water requirement for cement hydration is approximately 0.44 g of water per gram of cement plus the curing water that needs to be added to keep the capillary pores of the paste saturated" (pg 3) Thus, if the form had been properly hydrated, you would have seen moisture seeping from the bottom of the form.
@@appalachianwoodhomestead even after concrete fully cures after 91 days, it remains permeable to water. Specifications for testing absorption and permeability are available from ASTM. Keeping a dry pour submerged until the entire stack is fully hydrated is necessary, and it is just a matter of time until standing water reaches all the way through. It's also necessary to avoid repeated wetting and drying. The TH-cam method of misting attempts to stabilize the surface. IMO the best approach is to mist until it ponds and then continually add water to maintain the pond until water is verified all the way thru. After that, keep hydrating for 7 days.
dry pour in the manner that you are doing is for posts in the ground. you would dig the hole center the post then dump the concrete in and soak the hell out of it. over time you will get rain and watering the yard and snow and everything else. you need to redo this and soak the whole thing and let it sit for a long time getting it wet a lot over time. this test is nullinvoid
guess you didn't watch the video of the guy who dry poured about 5-7 slabs all together, let them set for a few days (only), and then asked his neighbor with an F350 to drive on them... TWICE, and that F350 had all his tools in it as well. It cracked around the edges but the slab itself did not crack and that was with the F350 being mildly aggressive.
@@billsmith9249 Yes, I'm aware of that video. Doesn't mean I would personally chose to do the same based at this time. The truck on the slab at two days is one of the reasons I thought letting this tube sit for 2 days would be okay for initial inspection.
Nobody is spending 8 hours watering. It's 10 seconds at a time - multiple times. At most, experienced people are spending an hour to prep before water.
You REALLY should be wearing a proper respirator when pouring bags of dry concrete. When the dust gets into your lungs, it mixes with the moisture in your lungs, and then does what concrete is supposed to do. Not only can that make your life pretty miserable, but your wallet and health insurance policy won't be very happy with you either.The only aspect of this test to be a fail, would be the test itself. Dry pouring a four foot by 8 inch form tube is not a realistic test, and every one of the tests and inspections of this form tube proved it. While dry pouring is acceptable in certain situations, it is DEFINITELY NOT acceptable for something like this, which is meant to be a structural support. Next time do a test with a 4 inch or 6 inch slab.
In this experiment you are basically testing its abilities as a foundation, therefore aesthetics are irrelevant. I think the main issue with this method is the lack of water in the required time. If the purpose is to show its suitability for foundation work then I would conduct the experiment again, but this time fill the tube to 3 foot, drill some 5mm holes every few inches around the entire tube and and all the way down. This will allow excess water to leave the tube (just like it would in a trench). Then drape the hose into the tube and let it run slowly for a few hours until it stops absorbing water. After at least 48 hrs, open it up. I don't think that premix is any good for a foundation anyway to be honest. It would be much better to mix your own dry mix with the correct ratio of cement, sand and gravel. It would also be much cheaper.
The correct amount of water is a crucial part of a proper mix design. I think you will find problems with drilling holes or anything else that allows water to run out of the mix. The water will likely be carrying cement with it thereby reducing the proportions in the mix leading to weaker concrete. Even good construction practices include prewetting the soil so that the mix water is not wicked into the soil.
The question for me is: are the any situations where dry pour is superior? I can't think of any. Traditional is so much more workable and not really any more difficult.
Lmfao wtf is this. A mist is supposed to wet all the mix. Lmfao. He shouldve sprayed alot in between bags. Who would think thay a mist is going to wet all that ready mix
For everyone saying there wasn't enough water and/or a week wasn't long enough to wait, I cracked open a piece from a different dry pour project three weeks later (total of four weeks after pour). Check it out here: th-cam.com/video/7FKddDUtr1g/w-d-xo.html
When I do 3 foot deep fence post dry pours, I do a few important things differently:
1. Tamp as you go. Tamp the mixture together as you go (as you add) to eliminate voids
2. soak the area for a long, long time. I would put maybe a sheet of newspaper on top to keep the surface from being pitted, but since aesthetics aren't important I wouldn't stop hydrating from the start
3. I would just leave a slow mist or drip on a column like that, continuously hydrating, for a good 24 hours. Concrete is like a sponge and the water will get all the way to the bottom. We are naturally impatient so we want to just drench but the absorption rate is slow. A continuous mist that doesn't drip water directly onto it works fine. Set and forget until 24 hours.
4. I protect from drying, or just keep wetting it for a good long while.
That's really great advice. Thank you.
Dry pour internet videos: Let's break this open after 15 minutes so I can publish the video already.
I don’t think you need to mist it if your not concerned about aesthetics. Just flood it
Exactly
I would say that if you care how it looks, mist it.... But mist it damn good. I don't know why they say wait an hour between waterings. Once it tuffens up a bit, start showering it good. Keep it wet! Don't take the forms off for a week. Spray your forms down first with 2 coats of pam cooking spray and let it soak into the wood.
Keep it wet and covered for as long as possible. Concrete water cures fully in 28 days, it doesn't dry. Need more water and time to cure doing the dry pour. I'll be doing a slab dry pour test comparing wet mix.
There have been some surface flaking reported from those who apply too much water at the start of the wetting process. True or not, I have no idea. Cajun Country Living was addressing some previous comments on yesterdays video.
@@shawng8432 it's all pretty cool experiments. I have done a few undocumented dry pours on a small scale. They are solid, just not pretty, but I like the rough surface for traction in the winter
Too much water gives you weak concrete because the excess water forms voids.
Thx for trying this but I'm not sure why people keep only estimating the amount of water used when they should be using the amount of water for each bag. For every bag of concrete, people SHOULD have a measured amount of water set aside to pour on the surface after the top layer firms. This is the only way to know how strong a dry pour can be because of actually using the correct amount of water for the entire process.
Fair enough. Thank you for the suggestion. with this video I was trying to test the way people are currently doing dry pour, which is clearly not optimal for concrete strength. I'll probably test again with measured water sometime next month.
I totally agree with your opinion!
@@appalachianwoodhomestead Sure NP! I'm about to do my own experiment as well.
Great comment Rotary.
Tamping the material is also crucial, otherwise there will be air voids which will be weak spots leading failure. No different than a wet pour. The principles of concrete all still apply.
@@johnlee7085 Yep!
I see there are a few things that would have made this a success, I am NOT a professional but I do have experience with regular concrete. I noticed that when you started with the water that you were following instructions for a pad/large flat surface where you didnt want to upset the visual look. What I would suggest instead is to immediately add water and avoid the misting because this isnt 1-4in of material that needs water. This shoud have been watered down from the beginning so that the water had time to get to the bottom more evenly. Other than that I believe that letting it sit for 2 days after watering it that would have been a much better comparison.
Awesome! Thank you for spending the time and money to conduct the test again as many viewers requested. The video was very informative. I was curious how much of the bottom of the tube had cured from contact with the ground, glad you showed that part. I am slightly curious how the test would have gone if the tube had been fully submerged - would the interesting to see if the cardboard would have been soaled over time etc. But that doesn't matter much as no one is going to wait that long to use a pilon.
Thanks again!
I think it probably would absorb more water if fully buried, but I worry that it wouldn’t be very strong or useful for a foundation. I may test it just for fun once I get my backhoe back in about a month. Thanks for watching!
@@appalachianwoodhomestead yeah. I know a lot of people dry pour fence post concrete but the thickness is much less etc.
@appalachianwoodhomestead these are supposed to be watered way more than what you did, & it's also recommended they be left for 30 days, as the dry pour curing method is different than wet.
If you had a clear tube, you could've seen whether you were adding the correct amount of water, or after misting start measuring the amount to ensure you have enough to reach the bottom, bc each bag needs a certain amount, & what you added clearly wasn't sufficient.
@@leahrowe847 My wife and I were talking that it would be fun to do with a wood and plexiglass form.
I've thought about measuring the water. I'm not sure that 2.5 quarts (the amount given for my bag) would have penetrated more in this narrow, deep tube. I'm also not sure how I'd sprinkle it evenly if I poured from a container. I'm wondering if maybe dry pour needs extra water added to ensure it saturates everything. Since it's usually done in slabs, it could be getting the extra moisture needed from the ground in other projects.
@@leahrowe847 Oh, and I did water more than was shown. I edited out several rounds of watering to keep the video to a more watchable length.
Good test now it's a dry pour test , i knew dry pour would not work for anything thicker than 6" . Even if it works mixing gives a better psi rating. Thank you so much for the test .
The low strength of dry pour, no mix is concerning. I'm trying a final test with layering dry pour, water, dry pour, water (no mixing) to see if that's at all worth using. I'm tempted to get something to measure PSI so I can see just how strong, or weak, the dry pour method is.
@@appalachianwoodhomesteadcan you do the next test in slab form instead of tube? Like 4" or 6" thick, 4' x 4'🎉
This may have worked if he had done it properly and gave it a shower twice for every inch of slab. In this case 96 hours.
You really should do this and let it sit outside for a month or so. Fence post seem to get really hard after being in the ground for a long time. Also consider the red bag fast setting quikrete mix which says on the bag that it can be dry poured.
My local store doesn't sell Quikrete, only Sakrete.
Pieces from all of my experiments are sitting out in the rain. Last we checked, my wife could easily crumble parts with her hands. I think the stratification from lack of mixing or screeding will cause it to be sub-par, no matter how much water gets in it.
The misting method only is used for 4 " to do that kind of pour you would have to totally mist it till it's totally drenched because that's to far for the water to reach the bottom at that point for strength you would have to stay and continually drench it
A 19" slab? Who needs a 19" slab? As much as you tried to resist it i think for a foundation pillar you'd want to get the concrete in direct contact with the surrounding ground and have that soaked. My understanding is concrete is porous and water will slowly move through it Maybe you should do a slab pour where it goes from a few inches to a few feet thick, leave it a really long time - at least a month, if not several - during a time when there is plenty of moisture available to soak into the slab gradually. Then cut sections of the slab at various thickness and have them professionally tested.
I think for that particular shape, I would have just go full soak instead of waiting an hour between misting. Since the mix is a lot of sand, most of the water will drain off into the ground and whats soaked into the concrete will cure well. The crete will only accept as much moisture as it will absorb. The sand in the mix is the best draining medium. Of course a psi test afterward would test how strong the cure is. Crete will cure hard with just about any amount of moisture. Getting the correct psi depends on the amount of moisture, time, and evaporation rate. This is my uneducated guess based on sculpture work with crete.
For it to mix well dry pour is still mixed when you pour it but to make a tube you would have to totally drench it all the way through the difference is to make sure when doing this way is to totally drench it then come back in 1 hours and doing it again 1 hour drench 2 hours drench then fully water it let the water drain then do it again then repeat wait 2hours and drench one last time
But it's a lot of patience
I guess everybody needs to do a video on this and it was somewhat interesting to see this one but I don’t think anybody would even consider doing a dry pour more than I would say 10 inches max.
You don't know until you try. I wanted to find out how deep it could reasonably go (and tested it in isolation from the ground on purpose). I was hoping to find an easier way to do piers for a cabin I'm building this summer, but this is a "shortcut" I won't be using.
Thanks for showing this. I think it would have been better to just soak it from the beginning. It might have worked. I'm just going to mix it. I don't see this method saving any time or effort. I certainly don't want to chance it. The foundation is the most important part of a build.
I've done the soaking from the beginning, too. The results are better than this, but still not great. I believe at least some mixing is necessary.
Sure if your building a 4 ft thick bomb shelter, bridge, high rise etc. dry pour no good. But for the small DIY home projects dry pour is fine.
To be honest, based on what I've seen so far I'd hesitate to make anything more than a chicken run or walkway with dry pour. I think slabs are a bit different since they're getting a lot of moisture from the ground, but the stratification is pretty bad and leads to a low quality result.
You're supposed to repeat the shower twice for every inch of slab. So a 48" slab would take 96 hours. If you were able to do that straight through at 8 hours per day, this project would not be complete for 12 days. That's why it failed.
Since the concrete is in a tube and contained, you didn't have to saturate the concrete a couple of times.
You could have just poured 1 1/4 gal of water slowly, for a 60lb bag of concrete.
2 days is not enough time to fully cure a 4 ft pillar
Concrete has 50% strength at 2 days and is rated for driving on.
You can plainly see the difference in quality and strength when compared to cement that was mixed (in the tube) when you watch one of my earlier videos.
MIXED concrete, maybe. The curing and strength times you cite are based on a the standard mix pour method. Just consider that slower hydration might cause the chemical curing process to be extended. It might take a month or more for full strength. And again, contractors would never use this method, this is for DIY people who don’t have the equipment to mix and pour but DO have time to wait for curing.
@@isabellavision Agreed that this method is absolutely not for serious construction.
The only information I can find suggests that dry pour may cure and dry slightly more quickly than wet pour. It would be a very interesting experiment to run. Maybe I can use it as an excuse to get more fun tools.
@@appalachianwoodhomestead is it common practice to drill holes for anchors after 2 days? And for similarity if building a deck on one of those brackets that keeps the wood off the foundation, would they start construction after the 2 days or let it cure a little longer?
@@clintlickner People do drill after 24-48 hours, but typically don't put torque on anything for about a week. Your point is taken in that regard. However, the overall quality is also extremely poor. I still have a chunk sitting around and can try drilling it now that it's been longer, if you're interested to see that.
6:46 how much water per cubic inch did you pour. For that depth, you would have had to fill that top section 10 or 15 times to have enough water to soak to the bottom. Without the proper amount of water and curing time for the amount to mix, it is not a really fair demonstration. Not adding enough is like not adding enough water to dough. But still 19 inches is not bad at all.
I moved up to watering every 20 minutes and watered throughout the day and evening.
ok
Lack of water, no curing time. Great method 😂
I let is sit in the rain for 3 weeks and checked on it again: th-cam.com/video/7FKddDUtr1g/w-d-xo.html
Isn't the thinking with drypour that the cement will absorb water slowly over time? Since you isolated it from it's surroundings the only water it got was from the top and bottom. Is 2 days do you really think the cement got enough water from either direction even if every drop you put on it got absorbed?
I haven't seen anyone try to do a full tube of dry pour. 6" max depth maybe. You'd need to add water every bag or 2. In a dirt hole for a post, dry pour is completely fine. Don't need a tube. Even then, the entire depth (4' in Michigan) doesn't need to be filled with concrete. I would do 2 bags at bottom and 1 bag at top. I wouldn't even use a tube for a footing except a section at the top to get the concrete above grade and level. I'll be trying to do a dry pour on bare ground over a horizontally laid tube to extend my drive way culvert a few feet. Will be about a foot of gravel on top of the concrete. 12" culvert pipe is way over priced if you can find it and I don't need to buy 20' to only use a 3' section.
I tried in just about 6" sections in my third video. it didn't work well, either. Part of the problem is that it gets bad stratification as the gravel rises up, so there are lots of stratified layers.
@@appalachianwoodhomestead Gotcha.
I am doing some stepping stones. # inches should soak just fine. I'll moisten the ground first so it soaks from both top and bottom.
I agree that this method should work for stepping stones. I highly recommend screeding to make sure it's level and to help push the rocks down. This will give you a nicer looking product that's stronger, too.
Many thanks to Appalachian Wood for conducting this experiment, it was very enlightening and educational. IMHO comparing dry pour to wet pour is the same as comparing a Harbor Freight trailer to a flat bed. Dry pour is fine for small DIY projects, however no one in their right mind is going to want to build a multistory office building using dry pour with current technology. On the other hand, why pay contractor rates for a home sidewalk or garden shed slab when dry pour is fine. Plus, why miss out on that personal satisfaction of doing it yourself. Wet pour is for commercial projects and the overwhelmed, lazy, and/or timid homeowner. Dry pour is for the cash-conscious do-it-yourselfers. Everyone just needs to stay in their lanes.
It doesn't have to be dry pour or contractors. I think small scale mixing, like with a drill attachment in a bucket (or even with a piece of rebar), and wet pouring in small increments yields a much higher quality product. This costs negligibly more than a straight dry pour, but will bring stronger, longer lasting results. I personally might dry pour stepping stones or a chicken run, but nothing as important as a garden shed.
1 - Roughly 5 quarts of water is needed per bag, you might have done one total gallon.
2 - Light moisture turned the dry concrete gray deep inside and it never got enough water to actually solidify. It needed to be actually wet.
3 - I wouldn't hammer an anchor into wet poured concrete until after full cure of 28+ days.
4 - Cylindrical type containers are going to allow water to leach quicker and further along the sides, then in the center area, thus causing the center area to only get moist - not wet as required.
5 - No amount of water would have leached down 4 feet in the time given.
6 - No person would try and fill a column dry that tall for any structural purpose.
7 - If pouring a column even wet, you must use rebar over 12" depth or it will crack/break just like the dry pour.
8 - Only a person that has never mixed concrete would believe this video.
Recommend demonstrating using an a small slab. ex. 4x6x4(?).
The PSI strength should be on the bag.🤷🏾♂️
The reason you were able to pull out the bolt and destroy the concrete, is you didn’t give it enough time to set up and harden. You can’t just do everything in 24 hours, you need six weeks of setup time for it to work.
After this experiment, I did some more research and realized that I needed to wait longer than two days. The recommendation is generally to wait a week before putting tension on the anchor bolt. Thanks!
Totally acceptable to tap sides to destroy air pockets in my view, but comparison to a shallow slab very different test
Dont give up! Do one more test. All it will take is another not-fun clean up and goodbye to more of your own money! Hopefully this will produce more accurate and desirable water/concrete mix results than your last attempt using a hose and spray nozzle, which can't be easily measured or delivered. Also will provide evidence of how water does or doesn't permeate a volume of dry concrete mix that's thicker than a 4" slab configuration. Quickrete specifies 7 pints of water per 60 lb bag of the mix you used. As before, fill another 8" diameter x 4 foot Sonotube but with only two 60 lb bags. The column height will be about 31". No need to tap or vibrate. Then pour in all the ACCURATELY MEASURED water that Quickrete specifies for the two 60lb bags; 14 pints (1 gallon +3 quarts. Not from a hose, use a container. Let cure for 24 hours. Cross fingers, cut open the cardboard tube and destructive test.
Sakrete (what's sold in my area and what I used) requires 2.5 quarts per bag of the size I had, which is less than the amount you cited for Quickrete.
I agree the hose can be difficult to measure, but this was an attempt to test the currently popular dry pour method, which uses misting and hosing instead of measuring.
I sincerely doubt that this no-mix method, no matter how the water is measured, will result in a high quality product, but I'm willing to give measuring it a try at some point. Though I would wait at least 48 hours to cut it open, since that's when it's rated for vehicle traffic and has 50% of its final strength.
Without the correct amount of water, the cement is only partially hydrated, so there would be no way for the concrete to be as strong as any other fully hydrated method.
Tamping the tube is important though because this is what allows the cement and fine aggregate to consolidate around the larger aggregate.
Regardless of the method used, the same principles still apply.
@@johnlee7085 But will the dry pour bros get mad if I tamp? 🤔
Did you water it well 4-5 times a day for two weeks as you're supposed to do with a normal wet pour. If not, it does not settle it at all.
Two weeks is a darn long time. Most people only wet cure for about a week.
No, I didn't do that for this video because that really wasn't the point. I watered at frequent intervals over the course of one day. I was attempting to see how deep the water penetrated during that time since many people only water dry pour for a day or two.
It could be a fun experiment to see if I could actually get the entire tube form worth of concrete saturated with a dry pour, no mix method.
First I want to say thanks for the test and video. However I feel there is some problems presented here.
Dry pour for fence posts is used all the time. I think the way presented here doesn't do dry pour any justice. It gets stronger over long periods of time. Eventually it will have full coverage and the concrete will fully harden and cure close to max psi strength (over one month). Doing a 24 hr comparison is basically a worst case scenario between the 2 methods.
Even wet pour after 24 hrs to me is very weak and brittle. I have had to wait over 2-3 days before removing wet pour from concrete molds, etc. Also your curing and drying explanation is very incorrect.
Copied from the internet here is a guideline for wet pour (conventional). When waiting for concrete to dry, keep these timeframes in mind:
24 to 48 hours - after inital set, forms can be removed and people can walk on the surface
7 days - after partial curing, traffic from vehicles and equipment is okay
28 days - at this point, the concrete should be fully cured
Dry pour takes longer (as the water penetration is not as fast and complete as wet pour)
I have many dry pour posts that if you pull them out of the ground, the concrete around those suckers are just as hard and strong as the ones that would be wet poured. The problem I think in this video is time and water penetration. Had the tube been set in the ground and the wet ground was giving moisture from all sides it would yield much better results. I understand this is a test but I believe the testing methods here is flawed and give poor results.
I completely agree that setting it down into the ground would result in better moisture absorption and a stronger product. Water penetration was low. I was attempting to test whether the "traditional" dry pour watering method and schedule could result in a satisfactory product with a tube. I think that's unlikely. A post hole in the ground (and at a smaller overall depth) is a different situation.
I did remove the tube at two days. I thought the video stated that in a caption. I don't have an accent, but English is my second language so sometimes I get words muddled. People have told me that dry pour takes longer to cure, but I went based on my bag's statement that it was safe for vehicle traffic and at 50% strength after 2 days.
Thank you for taking the time to leave a helpful and thoughtful comment.
Cue the "Where's your mask?!" comments 😂
For a form, just pond the water on top. Once it all sinks in, repeat. Keep doing that for 28 days ...
Would it had helped if you used Quike crete?
It's basically the same product as Sakrete, but Sakrete is the brand available in my area. It's like different brands of strawberry jam or something.
I honestly dont think people are trying to make 4ft columns with the dry pour method.
The regular way of mixing concrete or bringing in a concrete truck. Is how 4ft piers and house foundations are made.
People have made shed pads, sidewalks, carport slabs and so on. So 1"- 4" slabs done the dry pour way is great.
I will be making a 3"- 4" thick parking pad on my off grid property using the dry pour method.
When it rains it's too muddy from the truck to my mobile home.
Did you put the amount of water written on the bags?
Good point. He could have added it all at once (slowly) in this case.
Miss ya at the Lab bro!! die antwoord!!!
Fatty Boom Boom for life! :D
@@appalachianwoodhomestead Glad to see your doing well buddy!!
5:21 but how long did you allow it to cure?
This one was only a couple of days since I was testing to see how deep water would penetrate with a basic dry pour type watering schedule. I tested another layered version at a one week cure and then again at a total of four weeks. Those are in two other videos.
excellent science experiment ..
Soak the tub? You said cardboard so it should penetrate inside. I would have put some water inside as you poured in bags. Cure for weeks
If you had watered in between bags and not run 30 gallons of water through the top layer washing away any strength. Also it takes a week or longer to cure. You said concrete is cured in two days
“Remember curing happens in 24 hours drying is about 28 days per inch” literally BOTH are completely inaccurate.
Should have put water into a container so we could see how much water is needed.
Science bro
24 hours???
Blaming the system when you don't follow directions is not a fault of the system, it is the fault of the user. Clearly you have not watched enough of Cajin Country Livin's videos of doing dry pour, as you did not follow the basic rules for wetting, at all. They say you need 2 showers once per inch of thickness of the pour spaced out by 2 hours each. (See th-cam.com/video/_50MXEHr678/w-d-xo.html) which would requires days of showering to fully wet the concrete and trigger the chemical reaction that causes it to harden. I imagine in this specific application that placing a micro-drip waterer on top and running it continually for a couple days would probably be okay after the second shower and would result in full penetration of the water in sufficient quantity to fully wet the concrete mix.
BTW, using a oscillating saw (saber saw, saws-all, without a blade is a great method for vibrating a form to get the material to settle, eliminating voids.
thx!
2 days is nowhere near sufficient. It takes weeks for concrete to fully cure
In addition, concrete should be tamped down firmly.
Obviously, such a large depth of concrete needs lots of water.
The only thing I see differently is in every other dry pour video I've seen they use quikrete and not normal concrete, and they did every hour or two not 20 minutes,
I used Sakrete, which is a different brand name for the same style product (not "normal" concrete). I reduced the interval between watering because of the small surface area. I couldn't apply as much water at one time.
Isn't quikrete just a brand?
Manufacturers state takes 7 days to cure
It's needs to cure a day or more to use a anger both
Since this time I've learned that you need to let it cure longer than two days to apply torque to the anchor bolt. Thanks!
5:30 " the concrete is cured"
No, at two days the concrete is nowhere close to cured. The failure indicates insufficient water. Best to put a drip irrigation on it and keep a pond on it. The advice to do layers for dry pour is based on what? IMO it will not produce a strong foundation. The general rule for curing is 7 days for a fully hydrated paste which produces 70% of rated strength.
See American Concrete Institute ACI 308R-16
"Because hydration can proceed only in saturated space, the total water requirement for cement hydration is approximately 0.44 g of water per gram of cement plus the curing water that needs to be added to keep the capillary pores of the paste saturated" (pg 3)
Thus, if the form had been properly hydrated, you would have seen moisture seeping from the bottom of the form.
Of course it isn't good for a foundation. This was an experiment to see how far the water would penetrate. I didn't expect it to reach the bottom.
@@appalachianwoodhomestead even after concrete fully cures after 91 days, it remains permeable to water. Specifications for testing absorption and permeability are available from ASTM. Keeping a dry pour submerged until the entire stack is fully hydrated is necessary, and it is just a matter of time until standing water reaches all the way through. It's also necessary to avoid repeated wetting and drying. The TH-cam method of misting attempts to stabilize the surface. IMO the best approach is to mist until it ponds and then continually add water to maintain the pond until water is verified all the way thru. After that, keep hydrating for 7 days.
dry pour in the manner that you are doing is for posts in the ground. you would dig the hole center the post then dump the concrete in and soak the hell out of it. over time you will get rain and watering the yard and snow and everything else. you need to redo this and soak the whole thing and let it sit for a long time getting it wet a lot over time. this test is nullinvoid
This test was to see how far the sprinkles of water penetrated and was intentionally isolated from the ground as much as possible.
dry pour should not be used for foundation. or any thing with weight bearing like a dry drive way. may be
Agree...but I don't think I'd even use it for a driveway.
guess you didn't watch the video of the guy who dry poured about 5-7 slabs all together, let them set for a few days (only), and then asked his neighbor with an F350 to drive on them... TWICE, and that F350 had all his tools in it as well. It cracked around the edges but the slab itself did not crack and that was with the F350 being mildly aggressive.
@@billsmith9249 Yes, I'm aware of that video. Doesn't mean I would personally chose to do the same based at this time. The truck on the slab at two days is one of the reasons I thought letting this tube sit for 2 days would be okay for initial inspection.
Why waste your time on dry pour and spending 8 hrs pouring concrete and sprinkling watering when doing it wet you'll be done
in 3 hrs duh
After my experiments, I agree.
Nobody is spending 8 hours watering. It's 10 seconds at a time - multiple times. At most, experienced people are spending an hour to prep before water.
You REALLY should be wearing a proper respirator when pouring bags of dry concrete. When the dust gets into your lungs, it mixes with the moisture in your lungs, and then does what concrete is supposed to do. Not only can that make your life pretty miserable, but your wallet and health insurance policy won't be very happy with you either.The only aspect of this test to be a fail, would be the test itself. Dry pouring a four foot by 8 inch form tube is not a realistic test, and every one of the tests and inspections of this form tube proved it. While dry pouring is acceptable in certain situations, it is DEFINITELY NOT acceptable for something like this, which is meant to be a structural support. Next time do a test with a 4 inch or 6 inch slab.
Wear a mask. That concrete dust is very very bad on your lungs
You didn't leave it to cure long enough!
In this experiment you are basically testing its abilities as a foundation, therefore aesthetics are irrelevant. I think the main issue with this method is the lack of water in the required time.
If the purpose is to show its suitability for foundation work then I would conduct the experiment again, but this time fill the tube to 3 foot, drill some 5mm holes every few inches around the entire tube and and all the way down. This will allow excess water to leave the tube (just like it would in a trench). Then drape the hose into the tube and let it run slowly for a few hours until it stops absorbing water.
After at least 48 hrs, open it up.
I don't think that premix is any good for a foundation anyway to be honest. It would be much better to mix your own dry mix with the correct ratio of cement, sand and gravel. It would also be much cheaper.
The correct amount of water is a crucial part of a proper mix design.
I think you will find problems with drilling holes or anything else that allows water to run out of the mix. The water will likely be carrying cement with it thereby reducing the proportions in the mix leading to weaker concrete. Even good construction practices include prewetting the soil so that the mix water is not wicked into the soil.
The question for me is: are the any situations where dry pour is superior? I can't think of any. Traditional is so much more workable and not really any more difficult.
I'm not to convinced by your experiment. I noticed several flaws in your process..
I dont think he knows what hebis doing
Lmfao wtf is this. A mist is supposed to wet all the mix. Lmfao. He shouldve sprayed alot in between bags. Who would think thay a mist is going to wet all that ready mix
You need a check up from the neck up