BILT HARDElectric Cement Mixer, 4 Cubic Ft. 550W Portable Concrete Mixer Machine, Wheelbarrow Cement Mixing Tools for Stucco

Easy to put together.Easy to use.We used it to pour a 14x16 foot cement pad for our chicken coop.Just shy of 100, 80lb bags.We put two bags in at time and it did a great job. Made our job so much easier.

Overall, the unit appears durable and worked as soon as I got it assembled (by myself). The most notable part of my experience in assembling this is that some of the illustrations and descriptions are not what you have to deal with in reality. Example 1 - the mixing blades - the only way I was able to determine the correct orientation of the mixing blades was by studying the cover of the instruction manual, where I could see just a portion of a blade, showing the correct orientation. The wordy description did not help at all. Example 2 - mounting the arm to tilt the drum - the spring was not part of the arm nor mounted in the arm - it was loose in the package with the bolt and I had fun getting it to stay put while trying to get the bolt in. So it helps if you have a lot of experience with putting things like this together, realizing that you may have to extrapolate and use intuition in order to be successful.

I needed to mix concrete for a pad that would use 17 bags (60 pounders) in one pouring. The mixer arrived boxed in a manner that made assembly easy and kept the contents in good shape in spite of what was clearly a long shipping journey. The video provided by the seller, plus the printed instructions, made the process very straight forward and I was able to do it myself with no problems. All of the fasteners and small parts are bagged and each bag is lettered and corresponds to an assembly step. The only thing I opted to add was when putting the rotating parts together, I took that sub-assembly opportunity to add heavy grease to the bearing sleeves. When it came time to mix, I made sure the mixer was on level ground. I mixed two sixty-pound bags at a time and the motor was plenty strong enough to rotate the drum at all the different angles needed. It could have taken one more bag, but that would seem to me to be pushing things a lot closer to the limit of the unit. The volume of the drum is only just sufficient for 180 pounds of pre-mix, so pouring it out from that full a volume could get sloppy if using a wheel barrow as I was. If the mixer were in the pour area and could direct discharge into the form, then I would say it would be fine. I used a stiff mix (minimal water added) and that puts a lot of stress on the frame as the batch with tend to cling then slump to the drum as it rotates-- frame held up fine. I took each bag and (motor off) put it on the top of the upgright drum and then trowel cut the bag to dump it into the drum, frame was steady. I would then start the motor, which pitched right in, and when rotating then move the angle of the drum to where I wanted it for adding water. Motor was warm at the end, but still comfortable to the touch. Buttons are sealed to keep out debris. The drive gear is well protected from concrete splash. The powder coat finish is a major plus in keeping things easy to hose off and clean up. It is not something for weekly use, but for homeowner demands, it does a surprisingly good job and when you need the labor savings and speed of a mixer, it is great to have. It also works great for dry-mixing animal feed. Everything hoses down easily for final cleanup.

I bought this based on reviews I read on Amazon. My wife and I just completed our first project which went better than expected. We mixed two bags of Crack Resistant (60lb.) at a time. The first thing we learned was to put the water into the mixer before adding the bags of concrete mix. When we tried to put the concrete in first then add the water things didn't go well, the water just laid on top of the concrete and didn't mix very well. So the second time around we put the water in first and were pleasantly surprised to find the water and concrete mixed quickly and was ready to dump in about a minute, maybe less. So the routine we quickly developed was: Turn off the mixer, bring it to an upright position, add water the two bags concrete. Turn mixer on, tilt the mixer enough to have the blades inside mixer engage the concrete/water mixture and mix for a short time, then dump. Repeat. We did this with 41 bags of concrete mix in about an hour and a half forming a 7' x 8' x 4" pad. (I am 71 years old, my wife 61.) Overall, I am very impressed with the way this machine functioned for us. Addressing a couple of negative comments that others had I would like to add that our mixer came in great shape, we had no problems with damage during shipping, but that maybe was just luck, the box it came in did have some minor damage that could have been a problem. I remember someone saying that they didn't think the mixer was very stable, but we had no trouble with stability, either while mixing or pouring. But early on I did discover that things were more stable when I took the dump lever in my left hand, then hold the bent support bar (the one that the mixer hopper is supported with) with my right hand. By holding the mixer with two hands and dumping slowly I was able to control the mixer with ease, even tipping the entire mixer a little to control where the concrete landed.

This is pretty good mixer especially if you’re doing a big job and need to keep mixing mortar. The only problem is now the jobs done I have no use for the thing lol.

The media could not be loaded. This is a great concrete mixer and has withstood me putting over 600 80-pound bags through it over the last two months with no signs of slowing down. It was easy to assemble, mobile so I could move it by myself and powerful enough to chew through 3 80-pound bags in a single mix. For ease of use, I recommend only doing two bags at a time though. The only problem I’ve had with it is it’s initial wobble in the upright position has increased slightly over time but no parts are showing stress. I appreciate how easy it is to clean as it’s quick and simple with a hose.