No more dirt & mud!

One of my main goals for this year was to get a concrete pad poured around my telescope pier in order to get 'up and out' of the mud around it. This didn't matter so much in the Summer and Winter but the Spring and Fall made for a bit of a mess and nobody likes playing in mud, especially when trying to use your telescope gear.

Originally I had planned to build a wood deck but with the price of wood skyrocketing lately I started to investigate using concrete. I had never done any concrete work before so off to YouTube I went... This resulted in me stumbling across videos on 'dry pour' concrete pads. The idea intrigued me as it didn't require a cement mixer and the mess of mixing the concrete and pouring it.

After many hours of YouTube video's I decided to give it a try. Economically it made a lot of sense and it was something I figured I could handle with a bit of help from my teenage boy. I won't get into too many details as you can easily find the processes documented on YouTube but it took the better part of a day to sort out and I like it! (so far) We'll see how it weathers through our harsh Canadian Winters. It's fully cured now as it has been a bit over a month since it was completed and there are no cracks at all. :)

I settled on 8ft x 8ft and I'm hoping to build the observatory next year on the pad so we'll see how that goes!

Pics of the process and completed pad: