You’d be forgiven for thinking that concrete pumping was more suited to large commercial builds than smaller DIY projects or self-builds. However, pumped concrete is ideally suited to projects where you’re working on a small site or where access is otherwise challenging. More and more self-builders are relying on concrete pumping rather than labour intensive alternatives, such as barrowing the product to where it’s needed.
With this in mind, the team at North West Ready Mix thought it was time to talk through the pros and cons of each approach.
Pump concrete to save money and time
They say time = money, and that statement is particularly true when you’re responsible for a construction project. If your labourers are spending much of their day barrowing concrete around the place, that’s hours they might have put to better use. Barrowing is also tough, back-breaking work and often depends on suitable boarding being laid in order to allow access throughout a site.
A much simpler approach is to run flexible or steel hoses from the mixer truck right to where you need the concrete. It’s possible to run hoses along the narrowest gaps, between or even right through buildings, something that’s either impossible or very difficult to do with a wheelbarrow. A high capacity pump will also deliver as much as 35 cubes of product per hour, far exceeding what’s possible with barrows.
Less waste, more savings
Every spill costs money, whether it happens when unloading into a barrow or when transporting the concrete to where it’s needed. Spills can also be difficult to clean and may cause damage to existing surfaces where concrete is accidentally left to set.
Pumped concrete is very rarely spilled as it’s delivered exactly where you need it, which is good for your pocket and even the environment.
What about mixing on site?
For a very small project such as garden shed footings you could of course buy the sand, cement, aggregate and additives that you’d need to mix concrete yourself, and perhaps that’s the ideal solution if the job requires less than a cube of product. Where your project requires more than 1m3, however, we’d recommend concrete delivery, as mixing large volumes of concrete is a dusty, time consuming business that can lead to issues with the concrete setting faster than you can mix another batch. For smaller DIY or self-build projects you can’t go wrong with a volumetric mixer that mixes concrete fresh on site to your specification, combined with a ground line pump to transport the product where it’s needed.
So whether you need to pour footings for a garage, garden room or kitchen extension, it seems apparent that pumping is the way to go. While it may seem more expensive initially, when you consider the labour and time implications associated with other methods, pumping is more often than not actually cheaper than barrowing and is certainly a less painful experience.
