How to Build a Patio From Concrete: A blog around how to use concrete to build patios.

This is a good example of the kind of thing that can be done with an online blog. The ideas are not original, but the execution is. What’s at stake is not just your own reputation and current income; it’s whether you’re going to get more work or not. If you want more work, it helps to set yourself up as an expert on something, and concrete is the way to do that. It also helps to have a blog that shows your work is on target and has real value.

This is a blog post. I am writing it under my own name, but the idea was inspired by a book of essays by the writer David Foster Wallace.

I always thought that the building of concrete patios was the kind of thing you did when you lived in an earthquake zone or had a lot of money, and so I never built one. Then I moved to San Francisco, where it rains often and is difficult to build on top of hills, and I figured that if I couldn’t build a patio, it might as well be something nice, since I could afford to do it.

I took a class in stone masonry at the local community college, and the instructor said that I could buy cheap precast concrete blocks from a place called Fast Block. It’s not brick-and-mortar, but it’s close.

I spent two days on Craigslist looking for cheap cement bags, and then began to haul them home on my bicycle. The bag weighed 30 lbs., which meant that I had to carry both it and the bike up an eight-foot flight of stairs (there are no elevators) to my apartment. That first day’s haul felt more like hauling bricks than bags of cement, but I got the hang of it after awhile

In the old days, concrete was made by mixing cement and sand. Then someone discovered that adding lime (calcium oxide) to the mix made concrete stronger and more resistant to swelling. It also made it more porous, so water could drain out of it.

All this means that a patio made out of lime mortar is stronger than one made with cement alone. But it isn’t much stronger than a patio made with cement and sand, because water can still get in. To make a patio that stays dry all year round, you need to block the pores through which water can enter. That is where the lime comes in.

With a good quality lime-based mortar mixture you can build a patio that will last for 20 years or more without needing any maintenance at all. Once you have built your patio, you can leave it alone for as long as you like, and when you want to remove it, simply mix up some new mortar and repoint or re-point your patio as necessary.

Concrete is a versatile building material that breaks down easily and is relatively cheap. It is used in all kinds of building applications, from foundations to stairs. Its versatility has made it popular for patio and pool-side construction since the 1930s.

The most basic application for concrete is as a foundation for a home or other structure. To make concrete, you mix cement with water, then add aggregate such as crushed stone, sand or gravel to turn it into mortar. The mixture hardens when it sets.

The cement you use will depend on what you are building. Some people use concrete masonry units (CMUs), which are precut square blocks of concrete that come in bags or ready-mixed in a bag. Others prefer precast pours, which are preformed segments of concrete that you either pour at the job site or have delivered to the jobsite ready to put in place.

CMUs are cheaper than pours but can be time-consuming to install. Pours offer more control over the size and shape of the finished patio and make it easier to level the patio after pouring because they are poured into pre-cut forms that account for any unevenness in the ground surface. They also tend towards more architectural designs because they can be poured into

The key is to use concrete that has been treated with a bit of lime and then mixed with some sand. (More about this on the Concrete page.)

This sort of mixture is called “lime mortar”….

So mix up some concrete, add the sand, and then add enough lime to get a good consistency. It’s not so hard as you might think.

I’m afraid that I have never seen a lime mortar mix. It sounds like it’d be unpleasant, and I doubt it would work well with plain concrete. I just picked up some bags of portland cement in an office supply store, and they were $10 for 10 pounds.

I use a stainless steel roller for mixing and I will even add water to the mix, perhaps about 1/4 cup for every 5 gallons of concrete I am making. I have learned to use the right amount of water by pouring the water in a shot glass, then adding 2-3 scoops of concrete mix to it. If it seems too thick, add more water. If it seems too thin, add more concrete mix. You want the consistency to be somewhere in between when you roll it out into your desired shape. Then there is no need to worry about using too much or too little water/concrete mixture-the final product will always be right on the money!

When I was in graduate school, I worked with a tutor who had been in the Peace Corps. She was a very bright student, but she had a curious habit: she worked all day on the computer, and then when I came home she would tell me about the day. “We worked on the computer all day today,” she would say, and then she would tell me about what we had done.

“And then we went to the park,” she would continue. And so it went, from morning until night. She claimed that this was how she learned. My feeling was that this didn’t make sense. It didn’t seem like intellectual work; it seemed like someone telling you about her day at work.

I asked her if there was some other explanation for what she was doing — not just sitting at the computer all day — but something more interesting than making sure we weren’t getting up to mischief or watching television or whatever normal grown-ups do in their free time. “No,” she said finally. “I’m learning something.”

“What?” I asked. “What are you learning?”

“I’m learning English,” she said. Now that’s crazy talk! An English department major working all day on the computer?

But yes: