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Poured Concrete for Ballast


TimRatRace

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Well if a builder specifies 10mm and then gives you 8mm they are clearly in contravention of trading standards.

 

Mine is definately 10mm.

 

On the contrary, if you look at the relevant standards for steel, you will find that they include quite a generous allowance for variation in the thickness. IIRC, 8mm thick '10mm plate' would be just inside the limits.

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On the contrary, if you look at the relevant standards for steel, you will find that they include quite a generous allowance for variation in the thickness. IIRC, 8mm thick '10mm plate' would be just inside the limits.

 

 

Steel standards are scary we once refused some because we thought it was rubbish, the steel suppliers rolled out a load of industry tolerances and it got nasty. We didn't get the steel they didn't get paid, but that steel went somewhere I bet!

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  • 15 years later...

15 years is good!

 

One of my boats has been ballasted with poured concrete since new and I seem to think its pretty good.

 

I think the bad stories mostly come from older boats being bodged up.

 

There is always this in the back of one's mind. Concrete is not all it's cracked up to be.

Its isn't load bearing so probably fine.

 

 

 

Edited by magnetman
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Talk about thread necromancy! Reported. The link is an ad.

 

My poured concrete ballast is now nearly 34 years old.  I know it was put in well, cos I did it.  Not all Surveyors like it, but when Jarrah was last surveyed, Tony Tucker, an who is an acknowledged expert  on ferroconcrete hulls thought it was fine and not going anywhere.

 

It does have to be well pokered and the joint where the top of the concrete meets the sides ought to be sealed well. Mine is overlaid with sprayfoam. 

If you overdo the concrete adjusting the ballast is a bugger, and a good allowance for trimming is needed.

 

Some have smooth finished the top surface and laid tiles and or carpet.  Most just batten and use ply flooring.

N

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Just come across this old thread. For a big part of my working life I made precast and prestressed concrete products and the big problem is quality of the ingredients and the reaction with each other. Our barge which we brought in Belgium had been ballasted with poured concrete in 1985 when it was converted as was the normal practice in Holland and Belgium. The bilges and bottom were covered in “bilge grease” as were the sides a thick black product ,the concrete is mostly cement and sand with very little aggregate avoiding any sulphur acidic reaction. The surveyor was used to seeing it and knew how to take it into account when measuring thickness as did the shipyard when doing any overplating etc. The Dutch and Belgian surveyors had no problem with concrete ballast unlike the French but it is not now often used.

we did supply a number of narrow boat builders with paving slabs for them to use as ballast but I don’t know if they but them straight on the bottom or used something like roofing felt .

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When I bought the boat I did ask the seller exactly that. How many bodies are in there? He fortunately took it in good faith and had a litltle chuckle. Not everyone would  but yes I think the original builder's wife could be in here. I don't really mind as long as the papers don't get wind of it.

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12 hours ago, magnetman said:

15 years is good!

 

One of my boats has been ballasted with poured concrete since new and I seem to think its pretty good.

 

I think the bad stories mostly come from older boats being bodged up.

 

There is always this in the back of one's mind. Concrete is not all it's cracked up to be.

Its isn't load bearing so probably fine.

 

 

 

 

....................   and this in the country that, history suggests, invented concrete more than 2,000 years ago. 

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