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I placed 4, 4x4s in 5 gal buckets to hang a shade sail. I used 1 gal of water per bag. This was last night at 7pm. 75°. 50's overnight. 10am, 2 still have water in them and the other 2 still feel soft. Almost like clay. Did we add too much water? Help please.

Thank you

Jeremy
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    How much water did the bags say to use? Did you mix the cement well? – crip659 Jun 20 '23 at 20:17
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    4 five gallon containers are not much of an anchor for sails. You would be amaze a what a bit of wind can pick up. – crip659 Jun 20 '23 at 20:40
  • I used 50 lb bags and it calls for a gallon of water. I put the post in the 5 gallon bucket, leveled it, added most of the quikrete, added most of the water, and mixed a little. Then I added the rest of the cement and water. You can mix in a wheel barrel or something, but it says on the bag to do it this – Jeremy Jun 21 '23 at 06:06
  • I know they aren't that big of an anchor for a 10x13 sail shade, but my neighbor didn't want cement in the ground. I did add some wire rope supports on each post though. As of right now, there is no more water in the buckets. – Jeremy Jun 21 '23 at 06:10
  • I hope these are temporary anchors only, and the sail will be removed when unused. – Huesmann Jun 21 '23 at 13:34
  • attach the sail to the buckets with twine, small zip ties, or 60lbs test fishing line to avoid unpleasantness. – dandavis Jun 21 '23 at 20:46
  • Can I add a picture? Like I said, this is my first couple days on here and I'm still not sure how to do things. I lifted and tightened the shade sail today and it came out pretty well. 8/10. It seems safe enough for medium winds. I still wish I could've put the posts in the ground. As long as the neighbor is happy, I'm happy. – Jeremy Jun 22 '23 at 00:47
  • what does the neighbor have to do with anything? – jsotola Jun 22 '23 at 05:27

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All is vague here, because you provided very little detail such as the product, or the size of the bags - but assuming you used 80 lb bags of Quickcrete, or a similar product, that was at least 1 quart too much water per the linked page. If you used smaller bags, such as the 60, 50 or 40 lb sizes they also sell, it's worse.

If the product was old and the bags had partly hardened, there's a further problem available (concrete mix that has set in the bag won't set again, even if you break it up so it vaguely resembles a powder.)

I would agree with the comment that that's not much of an anchor for a sail of any size, so it might just make battering rams for the wind to flail about with....

Ecnerwal
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