I am building a House-Bath at their summer cottage. I bought cement more than six months ago, one and a half tons. Then I used half of this volume to fill the screed in the bathing department. And the remaining half remained for a later screed filling in the main half of the house. And that was my mistake.
And what do you think, after eight months, the bulk of the bags hardened, deteriorated. It turned out when dragging from one part of the house to another. By the way, this building material was stored on a pallet, in its factory bags. But in the house there was a constant high humidity, my floors were made on the ground and there was always a dampness from the sandy gravel cushion. Even though the house was already under the roof, with a door and windows.
Having opened the packaging with bulk material, I was greeted by such a misfortune: The bags that were close to the ground, and from the outside of the heaps of cement, hardened most of all. Moisture actively penetrated into the cement.
Naturally I was upset. I bought cement with a margin, worrying that the price tag for it would grow up like for sawn timber, but as a result, the price for it did not rise and I was left in the red.
I didn't want to risk the quality of the screed because of the spoiled cement, and with difficulty, reluctantly, I wanted to throw it away and start a new batch of cement. But having grieved a little, I remembered that I have an acquaintance who has been working as a concrete worker for quite a long time, walks on cobbles, pours the floors, performs various construction work.
I decided to call him, consult, maybe there is a use of such material. And here's what I found out:
- Cement, which has caked and began to harden, cannot be used for the preparation of masonry, as well as plaster solutions. These mixtures have the highest requirements for the characteristics of the cement.
- To apply this building material, large fractions of hardened cement are crushed into pieces of 1-2 cm, it can be used as an aggregate in concrete mixtures, like crushed stone. But after they gain full strength, they harden in the open air.
- Cement that has not completely hardened, and is ground by the force of the hands, can be crushed and put into action, but such material should be mixed mechanized, in a concrete mixer, so that inert materials such as crushed stone and sand take part in grinding small cement stones in the process mixing.
Such cement can be used for pouring concrete screeds, foundation pillars. But you need to understand that this composition has lost its characteristics by 20-30%. Therefore, you should not skimp and add fresh, just purchased cement to such a solution.
Which is what I did when pouring the screed. But besides this, a plasticizer and fiber were added to the solution.
The author of the article "Viktor Mikhailov". Welcome to the channel! Subscribe. All good!