New basement bathroom - Bad concrete pour?

[JeffV]

This is EXACTLY what happened in my situation...

"...When you are finishing it, you should float up enough fines (sand and cement) to get a smooth surface. If you get a puddle of water when you finish it, you used too much water."

At least I know what I did wrong. My only past experience w/ pouring concrete has been filling a hole in the ground for a deck footer - not a situation where the consistency seems to matter as much.

Thanks for the thoughts and link for the medium bed mortar - that's exactly the approach I'm going to take in fixing this.

Jeff

[JeffV]

I had taken pictures after I poured it and floated it. Incriminating evidence below. I think I could have gone for a swim! Yikes

[leejosepho]

... maybe something like Mapei's compatible "Planipatch" ...

Whew. I just had to come back here with a word of caution about that stuff, folks. The picture-directions clearly show a 25# bag being mixed into a gallon of water, yet the written instructions say not to mix more than you can put down in 8-10 minutes. Knowing I could spread the entire amount in five minutes or less, I mixed the entire bag only to have it kick during the extra minute I took to stick my drill-mixer in a bucket of water to do an initial cleaning. The happy ending to all of this, however, is that the big store then willingly took the empty bag back as "defective" over the matter of insufficient instructions and I was able to leave that still-steaming bucket right there in the cart at the service desk!

That stuff must be some pretty good stuff if one can get it from the pot to the floor ...

[jadnashua]

Most of those give very explicit instructions about how long you can take to mix it as well...remember that stuff starts to cure as soon as the water hits it - any delays and you'll have problems. Using warm water or being in a warm room will accelerate it, too.