Browse Forums Paving & Concreting 1 May 08, 2015 11:56 am HELP!! I just had a poorly done concrete exposed aggregate pathway on two sides of the house, the left side is approx. 5m2 and the right side 20m2. The concreter did a really terrible job; he did not raise an external drainage sewer pipe that I explicitly instructed, and cement had fallen in when pressure washing the concrete. I had to get a plumber who helped clear the cement, and thank goodness it had not set, and about 5 litres of mini cement rocks and slurry came out from the plumber extraction. Needless to say, this costed a bomb and a lot of stress getting it sorted out.
The concreter also had pressure washed and cut the concrete, when the cement was still wet. This caused uneven spots at random locations along the pathway, and the extremely dirty cuts, i.e. looks as though someone had manually ran putty knife through the lines, rather than grinder cut. As the cement was still wet, the washing caused significant splash back on my house exterior, with hardened concrete and dust on windows, bricks and downpipes. I tried to work it out with the concreter, who will help without additional payments and more on top of the original quote and has since disappeared. So I'm left with a problematic, unusable concrete pathway with a few major issues: - Levelling - The overall concrete pathway is not level, and not sloping away from the house. When it rains, water pools at different spots of the pathway. - Weep holes are covered - At the end section of the pathway, approx. 3m of sloping concrete has covered the weep holes. - Broken plumbing that needs to be extended upwards / patched up - A very ugly unwashed, unsealed, unfinished pathway This is obviously a significant difference to an outcome of an properly levelled, with right fall, wash and sealed exposed aggregate pathway. I have given up hopes for this, and just wish to cut losses for a functioning walkway that does not create additional problems to my house; if it still looks nice it will be a bonus. What worries me the most is 1) the covered weep holes and 2) the unlevel concrete, that is not sloping away from the house causing water to pool; and I would greatly appreciate advice from any experts here, as well as fellow forum-ers. What options do I have? Re: ADVICE NEEDED!! Bad concrete levelling, weep hole issues 3May 08, 2015 12:43 pm Hi buildup, I'm afraid you've learnt the hard way that concreters are a law unto themselves. One thing that bothers me in your story though is the instruction you gave the concreter to "raise the external drainage sewer pipe". If you are talking about your overflow relief gully you need to be aware that it is supposed to sit 150mm below your lowest waste outlet - usually your shower drain. It can't be raised without creating a major defect. And it needs to sit 50mm above surrounding paving. If your weepholes are covered, it sounds like the paving is too high anyway. We found ourselves in a similar situation to yourself and I'm afraid the only option was demolition and re-paving. It isn't easy to find a good concreter but the next time around I suggest you set out in writing exactly what you expect including fall and 75mm separation to weepholes and state that payment will be conditional on following your instructions. Just make sure your instructions comply with the building regs! There are a number of other threads on concreting advice. I'll see if I can find them for you. Re: ADVICE NEEDED!! Bad concrete levelling, weep hole issues 4May 08, 2015 11:15 pm @kat thanks
@liliana how much does demolition generally cost, and how was your experience with? yes, the plumbing is indeed the overflow relief gully, and the advice given by new tradies coming in for quotes is not to extend this pipe, but concrete around it with an inward slope, and install a drain over it. Does this sound right to you? i.e. appears to conflict with the 50mm above surrounding paving guide. Thanks for the feedback and would appreciate the links to read up before next steps. Re: ADVICE NEEDED!! Bad concrete levelling, weep hole issues 5May 09, 2015 8:38 am buildup the plumbing is indeed the overflow relief gully, and the advice given by new tradies coming in for quotes is not to extend this pipe, but concrete around it with an inward slope, and install a drain over it. If you do that, it will allow stormwater to enter the overflow relief gully and the regulations state quite clearly that the riser must be finished at a level that does not permit ponding or the ingress of stormwater and again there must be no ingress of surface water to any overflow relief gully. This link will take you to the VBA Technical solution sheet regarding Drainage Overflow Relief. It includes a diagram showing the gully (ORG) in relation to ground level. When paving you can reduce the 75mm separation to 50mm. http://www.vba.vic.gov.au/__data/assets ... Relief.pdf We had to remove about 30 square metres of 80mm thick concrete and the quotes we got were around the $1500 to $1600 mark. It also depends if there is room to get a machine in to cart it out or if they have to barrow it out. If there is anybody handy in the family, you can hire a concrete saw and cut it yourself. It just takes time and effort. I'm afraid there are no easy solutions around this. My experience is that concreters rarely know the building regulations and even plumbers will tell you all sorts of things. At the end of the day, unless you know what to ask for and make sure it gets done that way, nobody will give a toss. You are correct. Just read through all the ncc rules and 75mm is the minimum requirement for me. 4 11141 Hi guys, I want to do some floor levelling before laying the planks and am considering doing it with self-levelling or yellow tongue PB board. I am wondering which one… 0 6510 it depends on the natural ground level, if they excavated their boundary wall needed to be built as a retaining wall. If you filled, which sounds like the case then you… 1 7074 |