melev

What a busy little bee! LOL, I love watching other ppls super involved build threads. I adore your picture documentation.

That is way more effort than I would be allowed to do to my house. But it will be really neat when finished!

First off what size water heater is that? Seems very small in the pic compared to the one I have in the garage.
Second, curious why you are going to re concrete those pipes in? Why not just make some sort of panel in case it leaks or you have to move it again?

Just curious what your overall plan is and trying to save you some work

How much sand did you get? Thats a huge pallet of goodies? Very cool to watch things go into reality.

Thanks to you and other people I am trying to see where in my house I can put a fish room....... I can already see that my 55g is not going to be enough saltwater for me!

All I got is...WOW!

Looking great Marc!!
It seems any great "built in" requires a bit of remodeling.

Looking good, I still have concerns over some of the concrete but what i would propose would increase some work and costs a bit.


But looks like you got in a treasure trove of fun in now.

You're too productive. I've been working on my tank for 9 months and barely have some of the sheetrock done. Look forward to seeing more progress.

make sure no copper is touching concrete.

also, why did you choose to go with sybon salt? just curious?

also, make sure none of you copper pipe is going to touch concrete!
(there are two claims as to why.
one is the vibration from the water traveling through the pipes will make the pipes rub on the concrete sourounding the pipe and thus rubbing a hole in the pipe.
Two, is that the acidity in the concrete will eat through the copper over time....
these came from a plumber that i know. you might just make sure you wrap the pipes in the insulation, or get some of that blue and red plastic sleeve. it will buffer any acid and also buffer any vibrations.

just another one of my opinions.....

Concrete is actually not acidic, it is alkaline due to the lye but it can have a lot of the same effects.

I agree that the lines should be insulated though and not just for the vibration or chemical reaction but the fact that the concrete will also absorb the heat generated which will end up wasting energy. But my real concern is that the concrete above the pipe will be so thin that it will be easily crushed and the overall thickness of the slab poured on top of the existing will basically crumble with the use. Even to achieve a 4000 psi mix will be very tough and will require that there is a very small amount of water added. Any extra will weaken the mix and with very little water it will be stiff and hard to work with. To get a stronger slab generally a large amount of rebar is added but to do this with the existing slab in place and the water lines ran through it will be very tough. And I would hate to see the concrete start to crumble when the stand, tank, rock, sand, water and everything else is added. If that does start to happen I see a complete tear down and re-pour/rebuild and don't want to see that happen.

Thats a valid point, you might want to ask about adding fibers to the concrete mix to raise the PSI if nothing else. We use it here to keep things from breaking during winter/spring heave. Kinda depends where the frame actually hits the floor as well, hopefully not directly over the piping.

Even adding the fiber glass may not be enough. If you have ever been on a road that has been asphalted over top of concrete that wasn't great to begin with the road is nice for a little bit and then starts to fall apart again after a few months.

Marc's current house is a slab foundation and from what I remember he does have some settling. A house weighs in at about 60 pounds per square foot. the stand would displace about 21.5 square feet and weigh approx 6500 pounds figuring 500 pounds for the stand 1000 pounds for the tank, 500 pounds for rock, 500 pounds for sand and 4000 pounds for water, or about 302 pounds per square foot. I figure this will be pretty conservative number because the actual weight per square inch of the stand will be much higher.

I see some valid points regarding the concrete strength and the copper. Ive worked on houses built in the 60s with radiant floor heating, the copper was poured right into the concrete. Over 40 years the pipes tend to corrode. Whether the corrosion is caused from vibration, acidity, or most likely electrolisis from the iron ore in some rocks which I've seen first hand, the result is the same. If you can fully insulate the pipe from any concrete you will be doing yourself a long term favor aside from the fact that insulating any metal pipe from direct concrete contact where it's poured through a slab is code in most of America now AFAIK. Well at least on most of the west coast.

Regarding the concrete, if you can use a sheet of #6 wire (looks like metal fencing) to span the whole area and pour it a minimum of 2" thick it should be plenty strong for a tank room. Afterall there is, 2-4" of concrete already underneath the new pour to begin with. Up here in the PNW alot of concrete driveways, decks and garage slabs are pour with no metal reinforments at all. They dont typically break and metal is no guarantee that it wont anyway.

if you go back and look at the other thread where he cut out the old concrete, you will find a piece of rebar that goes from the left to the right. it is actually a few inches from where the pipes were so the concrete will be secured. also, if look around, you will find a chemical/primer that if you apply to the current concrete, it will allow the new concrete to adhear to the old. and i also agree that some of that wire mesh would help. (and anything is better then nothing.)

as for the concrete crumbling, i would think that it will be fine. the stand will not have a single pinpoint to where it should puncture through the concrete. (i believe that his stand doesnt have feet, so all the weight will be evenly distrubuted through out the entire length of the stand.

and you are right about being alkaline.... (i knew it was something like that....)
thanks!

Yes, there is one piece of rebar, and that does give some support but I am also thinking that the rebar may be at about a 3 foot spacing which isn't uncommon for the pad foundation houses. Also the one piece of rebar is probably pretty rusted and won't give as much structural strength as it could.

I would take the area where the tank is going to sit and remove all of the existing concrete, take the grade so that at least a 8 inch thick slab can be made and compact it very well. I would also layer plastic sheeting the bottom to prevent moisture and if it seems moist underneath I would go deeper and layer some gravel underneath that. Then make a epoxy coated rebar grid of 12" squares double layered one closer to the bottom of the slab and the other about 2 inches under the top layer so that a solid fully reinforced slab can be made that without any questions will fully support the weight and will have a well compacted grade underneath because no one knows if the grade was just fill built up a bit and evened out or if it was actually compacted evenly to prevent the settling.

Ultimately the choice is Marc's I only want to shed some light on an area I dealt with for a while. And the more information he has the better things will be in the long run.

This is what I was referring to when I mention fibers.
http://www.fibermesh.com/product.aspx?name=Steel+Fibers

Thank you for all your input yesterday and today. Here's what I'm thinking:

The slab is 3" tall at the kitchen end and to level the floor it will be 4" tall at the opposite end. It will take about 50 bags of concrete to do the area. I was planning to use 3000 PSI-rated concrete because 90% of it is fishroom floor for me to walk on and only one area will be covered with a large upright container to mix saltwater. I'm toying with 200g, but it may be smaller. I'd like to have it on top of where you see all the copper, but that may be a bad idea although it is the ideal corner of the room. I could put a frag tank in that corner as it is lighter, but the big water container would be in the way and I'd have to walk around it to access the frag area.

The only area that I feel matters is where the pipes were poking up before, and are now elbowing toward the water heater. That spot isn't under the corner of the tank, but is about 8 to 10" under one of the bottom horizontal rails that make up the stand. The stand will sit on three sides on the original foundation, and one leg with the corresponding rails will be on the new concrete (6" from the current step up area).

That one piece of rebar you saw was cut out of the way, so... let's hope the new concrete poured in there will glue things together.

It won't be thick right over the pipes because of all the black foam sheathing I had to wrap the pipes with because we couldn't find any sleeve material. Yes, I plan to protect the copper as much as possible.

Rebar is planned for the new concrete, and I'm going to have to make my own french drain system because of the shallow depth of this concrete, which is sitting on top of the garage floor slab.

I don't believe I'm skimping on the foundation for the tank, although I do hear your concerns. Remember when I originally discussed busting out the concrete where the tank would sit (7' x 3') and letting that be its own floating foundation so the house could do whatever it wanted around the tank. However, after Sunday's little project, I'm glad I only had to cut out a tiny area and not that entire rectangle. Seeing what the floor looked like under the old tank, I don't see any areas of major concern that would move me to greater action. The new concrete will simply make the entire fishroom floor one level instead of a single step down, something that has been a bit of an annoyance these past 6 years. Plus the room is bigger, which I like.

Tonight, I tied in the new copper plumbing going to where the utility sink will go, and changed out some copper to flex lines going into the water heater. It took a while, longer than I expected, but I didn't have any leaks when I turned the water back on. I did get a big burn on my inner forearm when it touched a very hot fitting I'd sweated 5 minutes prior, which was an unfortunate accident. Other than that, we've got running water and I'm ready to proceed tomorrow.

Jonathan, where can I buy that locally? And what kind of glue or resin do I pour or spread on the slab for the new concrete to adhere to?

The plan is to bring home 50 or more bags of concrete and rent a large mixer that I'll set up in the garage for the concrete pour.

Sounds like a solid plan to me.

50 bags sucks though. I hate mixing quickcrete .