Ready Mixed Concrete is made with a mix of portland cement, water, and aggregates such as sand, gravel, or crushed stone. It is manufactured at a centrally located batching plant according to a set engineered mix design. RMC is delivered in fresh condition to the purchaser at the site, in the truck, in which the mixture is mounted on the chassis, capable of mixing the ingredients of concrete during the transportation. It helps to maintain uniform quality throughout the work and gives you a high speed of concrete construction. Ready-mix concrete helps to avoid the problems like poor workability, segregation and bleeding, improper water-cement ratio, inadequate mixing time which are always faced in the traditional concrete mixes.
Ready-mix concrete helps to avoid the problems like poor workability, segregation and bleeding, improper water-cement ratio, inadequate mixing time which we face in the traditional concrete mixing done at the site. RMC is available in several grades such as M10, M14, M25, M30, M35, and M40 that defines its compressive strength. M20, for instance, will have a 1:1.5:3 mix of cement, sand, and aggregate respectively. Its compressive strength will be 20 MPa/2900 psi. Most of ready mixed concrete is currently manufactured under computer controlled operations and transported and placed at project sites using sophisticated equipment and methods. It is delivered to a worksite, often in truck mixers capable of mixing the ingredients of the concrete on route or just before delivery of the batch.
The requirement of right Ready-mix concrete
The right RMC mix can assist in reducing project costs to a great extent. Therefore, it’s important to list your exact requirements and find the right mix, based on the project that you are working on. Based on the type of concrete required, different RMC design mixes can be leveraged. Durability, workability, grade, and compressive strength are some of the factors that must be taken into consideration when outlining your project. Every project has specific Ready-mix concrete or RMC requirements. Based on the type of concrete required, different RMC design mixes can be used. Durability, workability, grade, and compressive strength are key factors that must be taken into consideration when outlining your project. The key project details, along with the time of requirement, quality, quantity, location, and work type must be conveyed to the RMC supplier.
| READY MIX CONCRETE | SITE MIX CONCRETE |
|---|---|
| Consistent Quality – concrete is made in high tech batching plants in a computerized environment. | The quality is inconsistent–because concrete is hand mixed. |
| Construction in double quick time. | Manual mixing is time consuming. Projects take longer to finish. |
| Raw materials are chosen after strict quality checks. | Quality of raw materials is manually checked. Or not checked at all. |
| Large quantities of concrete can be ordered. This allows you to upgrade yourself and handle projects of any size. | Takes more time. Repeated mixing needs to be done in large quantities as the mixer will be too small to handle the requirement. |
| No wastage of raw materials at your site. Everything is pre-mixed at our plants, based on your needs. | High wastage of raw materials due to manual mixing. |
| No hassle of managing labour on site. We supply ready-to-use concrete. Our well-equipped technical crew will handle the pouring and patching of concrete at the site. | Involves the use of labourers for mixing the concrete on site. Management of labour means more time, effort and money. |
| Safe work practices – no disruption in your schedule. | Highly unsafe. Unskilled and untrained labourers may work carelessly resulting in dangerous working conditions. |
| You don’t have to stock materials and watch over them. There’s no worry about pilferage. | The risk of pilferage of raw materials is high. |
Shamanth Kumar M, Managing Director of Skanda Group of the Constructions being a builder and a contractor suggest going with a good RMC mix. He says, I have done work both ways. What I feel is, there are huge advantages with RMC. There are reasons for it.
- A good RMC company gives you a better quality with accurate mix of the products. Water mixing also plays an important role and with RMC you can get sure with the mixed mortar. At site the contractor mixes it accordingly with his experience.
- RMC saves a lot of time as it is a very fast and easy process.
- Productivity – The work finishes very fastly and you can achieve targets by time.
- Mixing at site requires a bunch of extra labour as compared with RMC.
- Mixing material at site occupies a lot of space and you have to procure all the materials in the right quantity. The raw material shouldn’t fall short otherwise the work will not get complete on time and delays it to next day.
- If you calculate both the cost including the extra labour required and time you lost, you will find RMC cheaper.
- RMC mixes chemicals which helps to set the mortar quickly and gives a good bonding strength.
So I personally feel it is good to go with RMC rather than mixing the material at site.
“The ideal supplier must have the experience and adequate knowledge about the ideal composition and compressive strength required for your construction project. One very important criterion is that he must possess the procurement of the right RMC raw materials being used, which must be of top quality. He must have his own batching and mixing facilities, testing labs, and transportation infrastructure to help procure the right quality RMC.”
