I building a deck and am about to pour the concrete for the piers. I have many aggregate concrete chunks of an old walkwaythat I broke up to make room for the new deck. Can I safely mix these up with fresh concrete and use them as filler in the sonatubes?
Handy Dan
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Hard to answer without knowing deck loads, sonotube size, etc.
Short answer is no.
In my own case, I'm really cheap and do use broken chunks, but only use old broken concrete chunks if I pressure wash them off first and have calculated the strength reduction and the placement in the piers - ANY dirt left onthe chunks is a big NO NO, and probably will cause your piers to fail, esp if more that a couple of feet tall.
EDIT PS: I throw the chunks I reuse into the cement mixer with the new batch to get good adhesion - if you plan on just dropping chunks into wet concrete from a truck delivery I most heartedly advise agaist that.
Edited 4/18/2006 10:06 am ET by junkhound
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Remember the Kobe earthquake Tshinconsun (bullet ttrain) elevated rail prlatforms that failed?
Turned out the contractor had thrown old chunks of debris (and even wood and asphalt) into the columns.