Poured my own concrete path and wish I had hired a pro

My buddy said mixing concrete by hand for a 40-foot path was a bad idea, but I figured it couldn't be that hard. After 8 hours of mixing bags and a lumpy result that cracked in two weeks, I totally regret not paying someone $600 to do it right. Has anyone else tried a DIY concrete job and had it go wrong?

4 comments

4 Comments

charles_mitchell1mo ago

Man, I feel your pain. My driveway turn looked like a moonscape after my attempt. Rented a mixer and everything, but the mix was too wet in one spot and too dry in another. Ended up with this weird wave pattern that I tried to smooth over with a trowel, which just made it worse. Cracked all over within a month and now it's a tripping hazard for my mailman. That $600 would have been a steal compared to the headache and the cost of fixing it later.

paige3311mo ago

My buddy Rick tried this and his driveway ended up looking like a topographical map of the Rockies, @charles_mitchell.

the_wendy1mo ago

Got to be honest, I used to roll my eyes at people who paid pros for stuff like this. Thought it was just laziness or throwing money away. But reading your story and hearing how the mix can go wrong even when you rent the right tools really changed my mind. That wave pattern you described, yeah, I can picture it and it sounds like a nightmare. A month later and cracking all over, that's the kind of mistake that just keeps costing you. Makes me wonder how many other DIY projects I should probably just leave to people who actually know what they're doing.

anderson.piper1mo ago

Hits on something I've been noticing more and more lately. So many things we think are simple have this hidden layer of skill that you only find out about when it goes wrong. It's like plumbing, once you see how much can leak, suddenly $200 for a plumber sounds pretty reasonable.