The amount of water people add to the truck mix is getting out of hand

I saw a crew on a job in Tacoma last month adding almost five gallons of extra water to a four-yard load just to make it flow faster. The foreman said it would be fine once they power-troweled it. That slab is going to dust up and craze in a year, easy. You can't fix a weak mix with a finish. Anyone else seeing this more often lately?

3 comments

3 Comments

kai_burns7316d ago

Man, that's brutal. Five gallons on a four-yard load is asking for major problems. I've seen the same shortcut on a couple pours lately, and it always comes back as surface issues or worse. It's a shame when the schedule pushes crews to wreck the mix.

hannahcraig15d ago

Read a study last week showing that extra water can cut final strength by almost half, which totally backs up what @rileyprice said about future trouble. It really does turn it into weak soup just to move a bit faster. That kind of shortcut just guarantees callbacks.

rileyprice16d ago

Sounds like they're trying to make concrete soup over there. I'd probably do the same thing if my job was to finish a giant mud puddle before lunch. But yeah, that's a wild amount of water. It's crazy how much future trouble a little time saving now can cause. That slab is gonna be a total mess.