Do It Yourself

At Yard At A Time Concrete, we believe it is important to ensure that you are protected from harming your skin with freshly mixed concrete. The materials in concrete can irritate and cause severe harm to the skin, so we advise our clients to wear long sleeved shirts, pants and gloves. Wear goggles to prevent eye injuries from splashing materials and use a dust mask to filter out concrete dust. If you will be wading or kneeling in concrete, it is important to wear rubber hip boots or knee pads when floating or troweling. Wear waterproof shoes to protect your feet when standing in concrete.

Tools Needed

Concrete work requires a number of steps. Before pouring proper formwork is needed to pour the concrete into. The tools needed for concrete work include woodworking tools for building forms such as a hammer, hand cross-cut saw, portable circular saw, measuring tape, square, level and string level along with a small sledge and a maul. A pry bar is needed for disassembling the forms when the concrete dries. A builder’s laser level can make it easy to level or place a form to grade.

For concrete preparations, the tools needed depend on the job you will be doing. Shovels, rakes, and hoes are required for moving the “liquid” concrete around. Some of the concrete finishing tools include a long wooden screed, often a straight 2×4 piece of lumber, which is longer than the width of your pour, to pull the concrete evenly and off of the forms edges to provide a nice level surface. A tamper or vibrator can also be helpful in settling concrete in the forms. Other essential finishing tools include: an edger, groover, magnesium or wooden float, finishing trowel, pointing trowel, cement broom and a water hose. For larger projects such as floors or slabs, you will need a bull float with a bracket.