Had a pour in Tucson where the concrete kept setting way too fast, finally realized I was adding way too much water to the truck mix.

3 comments

3 Comments

Remember watching a crew pour a sidewalk in Phoenix one July. They were moving like their lives depended on it, screaming about the clock. The foreman said the mix was basically turning to stone in the chute before it even hit the ground. They ended up hosing down the whole truck and the forms with water just to buy a few extra minutes to work it. Brutal way to learn about water ratios in that heat.

paulnguyen15d ago

Honestly sounds like poor planning, they should have used a retardant mix or scheduled the pour for cooler hours.

bell.jessica15d ago

Yeah, that foreman was right about the heat, but hosing down the truck and forms is a really bad move. Adding water on site, even to cool things, totally wrecks the concrete's strength and can make it crack. The real fix is getting the mix design right before it leaves the plant, with the right amount of water and maybe a retarder. Once it's in the truck, you're just trying to work with what you've got, and extra water always causes more problems later.