I LOVE concrete!  It’s one of the most amazing building materials!  You can do just about anything with concrete — pour the foundation of your home, create the walls of your home, create concrete blocks, patios, decks, fire pits, and more.  The list is pretty much endless.  You can even create pre-fabricated concrete panels that look like brick on the outside, tilt them up into place and in a matter of days, have a full structure built!  I love it!!!

Today, though, we’re talking about those little concrete pads that you need around your home that don’t require a full concrete truck — just a shovel, bag of Quikcrete, a wheel barrow, some water, and a plan.

Need a pad for your A/C unit?  Maybe a footer for a concrete block wall?  Or, as in the case of our project, a brick wall needs a foundation?  Regardless of need, concrete fills many of the holes in your DIY projects, very nicely.

With this project, we assume you already have your formwork built for the concrete pad that you’re building, since they vary so much.  However, just some basics on concrete formwork.

• Make sure the formwork is level and square.  You wouldn’t want the pad to be out of square or tilted one direction or the other.
• Concrete is heavy!  About 150 pounds per cubic foot.  Because of this weight, you need to make sure that your formwork is strong enough to hold the concrete.  Otherwise, it will just flow out of the forms and all over the ground.  Not much help for your project!  When in doubt, make the formwork stronger than you think you need.
• Secure the formwork in place!  Don’t just build the formwork to create the shape your building.  Add some bracing to keep it in place.  Generally, this bracing amounts to a few stakes in the ground.  If you’re looking at a form that requires more than some staked bracing, you may be looking at a bigger project than we’re talking about, here.

As for the concrete, mix in the water, slowly!!  I cannot stress enough that you want to be miserly with the water.  The “drier” the concrete mixture, the more strength the concrete will develop over it’s curing time.  You still need to mix all the concrete with water, but you do not want it to become a soupy slurry mix.  This can happen with just a little too much water.  What you need is a “chunky” peanut butter-like consistency.  You’ll get an idea of this from the video.

Once you pour the concrete into your form, use a small trowel to finish and level the pad.  In some cases, the pad may be big enough to require a screed.  A screed is nothing more than some form of level (often a good, straight 2 x 4) to level the concrete when first poured into the forms.  You use the screed to move and level the concrete in the forms.  Once leveled, use the trowel to finish the concrete.  Some concrete pads may require or you may prefer a “non-slip” or non-smooth finish.  To accomplish this, finish the concrete as you normally would for a smooth finish, then gently drag a stiff, outdoor broom across the pad.  This will provide a rough “broom” finish to the concrete.

When you’ve finished the concrete to your liking, you’re still not done with the project.

• To prevent cracking, keep the concrete wet for the next few days.  The curing process utilizes a lot of water and produces a lot of heat.  This will cause cracking, if the pad is not kept wet.
• Immediately after finishing the concrete, cover the pad if it looks like it’s going to rain.  For the first 24 hours, rain could cause depressions in the concrete.
• Clean all your tools!  You don’t need a trowel covered with concrete for your next project.  If you clean it now, it will come right off with water.  If you wait, you may be chiseling it off.

Let me know your feedback in the comments.  Have a strange shape you need to create with concrete?  I’d love to help!  Maybe a question about building formwork?  Or, maybe you have a really unique concrete structure — post it up in the comments and show it off to the world!

After being exposed to the outdoors for even a very short time, your outdoor lighting fixtures can look pretty rough and be in need of replacement.  Typically, this is an inexpensive and easy improvement to your home’s exterior.  Since it’s usually just a few wire connections and a couple mechanical connections, it’s also something the average DIY person can handle.

To start, go to your local hardware store or lighting supply store and select an outdoor light to complement the exterior of your home.  Some things to consider: (1) Consider the space you have for the light fixture.  Some homes have plenty of area on the exterior wall to mount any size exterior light, others, not so much.  Make sure the light fixture size matches well with your home. (2) Make sure it’s a light fixture rated for external use. (3) Pay attention to finishes and materials.  Certain finishes and materials will last longer when exposed to the outdoors for long periods of time.  In this case, less expensive is not always better.

Once you have your fixtures selected and purchased, it’s time to install them.  First, as with all electrical DIY projects, disconnect the power to the fixture by shutting the breaker switch to the off position.  As I’ve noted before, I always err on the side of safety and just shut down power for the whole house at the breaker panel.

Now, you must first remove the old light fixtures.  Most fixtures have decorative nuts that you can loosen with your hands, some get a bit more complicated, but the majority will be similar to the one shown in the video, below.  Once the fixture is removed from the wall surface, you should disconnect the electrical wires, typically a black, white, and green (ground) wire.  You may have different colored wires or even a three-way wiring situation.  Regardless, take note of which wires on the fixture are attached to which wires on the home — you will need this information to match up the new light fixture wiring.

Most new light fixtures come with a new mounting bracket.  You can re-use the old bracket, but I tend to use the bracket that comes with the new fixture, since it’s designed for use with that fixture.  Install the new mounting bracket and pull the home wires through the bracket.

Now, connect the home wires to the fixture wires just like the old fixture was attached, as you noted in the step above.

Once you have the wiring connected, all that’s left to do is mount the new light fixture, install a light bulb and test it! Nothing to it. Don’t forget to turn the power back on before testing.

The costs on this project will vary greatly based on which light fixtures you select.  Exterior light fixtures can range from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks.  A very wide range, indeed.  You shouldn’t have any material costs, as most (if not all) light fixtures come with the necessary materials for installation.  Additionally, styles of outdoor lighting fixtures varies, greatly.  For this reason, our installation video cannot cover all mounting applications and if you feel you are in over your head on this project, please consult a professional electrician.

I would suggest having a quality set of linesman’s pliers for this project, as well as a straight-slot screwdriver, phillips head screwdriver, and a wire stripper.

Good luck and have fun with all your DIY projects!

Most swimming pool pumps include a timer to regulate when the pump comes on and turns off, throughout the day.  This is also a common point of failure in home swimming pool systems.

Many homeowners with pools call the company that services their pool to replace the pump timer.  This can cost the homeowner a lot of money on a project that’s perfect for the DIY person in your family.  It’s easy, it saves you a ton of money, and looks really complicated, so you can show it off to all your friends when you’re having your next pool party bar-b-que!

You can pick up a replacement pool pump timer in the electrical section of your local hardware store.  They’re just generic outdoor timers and come in various sizes and features.  For this project, I just replaced the timer that the homeowner currently had installed.  It cost $69.95 and the only other item you might need is new anchors for the timer/switch box.  I just reused the existing anchors, thereby eliminating that cost.

To start this project, as with all projects that involve electricity, you need to turn off the electricity to the item your working on.  We always recommend that you just shut off the main power switch at your breaker panel.  It’s better to be without power for a little bit and know you won’t get shocked than to take the chance that you shut off the right breaker.

Fortunately, with pools, you often have a sub-panel with breakers that just control the pool equipment.  This is a convenient alternative that works, perfectly.

Once the power’s shut off, you can begin dismantling the old timer switch.  Before you do begin, though, take a digital picture of the timer to make sure that you install the new timer exactly the same way as the old one.

Set the camera aside until later and start the dismantling by disconnecting the wiring.  This just requires a screwdriver to loosen the screws holding the wires in place.  Then, back out the screws that anchor the box in place to remove the box from the wall or mounting surface.

Next, begin to take apart the grey conduits at the base of the timer box.

Just using your hand, take these “pass-through” nuts and bolts and install them in the base of your new timer switch box.  You will likely need to “knock out” the holes in the new box for your wires to come through.  There should be pre-cut holes all the way around your timer box that just require a quick tap with a screwdriver and hammer to get the circular tab out of the hole.

With the pass-through nuts and bolts installed, you can now pull the wiring through and mount the new box to the wall (likely using whatever fasteners were used for the old box).

Now, pick up that digital camera and take a look at the wiring pattern.  Copy this picture as you install the wiring on the new switch.  Once completed, turn the breaker(s) back on.  You now have a new pump timer switch installed!

It’s that time of year when people start to think about summer, mowing the lawn, and irrigation systems.  Well, at least it is here in Florida.

Getting irrigation systems in working order before the hot, humid days of summer roll around is generally a primary project for many homeowners in the south.  Things happen over the winter, the system doesn’t get used, and we need it for the summer months, so we start to fix any and all issues right about now.

In this post, we’ll talk about how to replace a broken sprinkler head.  Although we ran into a slight challenge, this is generally a very simple project for any homeowner to take on.  You simply unscrew the old sprinkler head (by hand) and screw the new one on — after wrapping the threads with Teflon tape.

Normally, that’s all there is to the project.  For us, we had a 3/4″ sprinkler head that we needed to attach to a 1/2″ irrigation line.  That just meant that we needed a reduction bushing that we show you in the video.

Material List

1. New sprinkler head — this will vary based on the type of head you’re replacing.  For this project, we were replacing a large area, rotating head.  Although we’ve used XXXX brand in the past, we decided to try the “K rain” brand this time, just to see how it works.  The “K rain” K8000 head was the least expensive of the large area rotating sprinkler heads available at our local store and it also had the largest maximum distance.  Cost: $8.99
2. Teflon tape — also known as PTFE tape, you will need this for almost any plumbing project that involves threaded connections. Cost: Pack of 5=$2.98

Optional/necessary: We found that we also needed a flush-reducing bushing that added $0.66 to the costs mentioned, above.