A foreman in Tulsa told me to stop adding water to my mix, and my slabs look better now
I was pouring a 12x20 patio in Tulsa three months back and the mix kept stiffening up on me. The foreman walked over and said I was killing the strength by adding water at the truck. He made me use a plasticizer instead, and the finish came out way cleaner with fewer craze cracks after it cured. I always thought a little extra water was harmless but I guess I was wrong the whole time. Has anyone else had a foreman call them out on this, or do some of you still water it down when it gets stiff?
Did the foreman also tell you to stop eating gas station burritos before a pour? Because I learned that lesson the hard way on a slab last summer, and let me tell you, the crew was not happy with me. But yeah, on the water thing, I used to be the worst about it. Truck shows up, mix is stiff, I'm standing there with the hose like I'm watering my grandma's tomatoes. Had a guy on a job in Broken Arrow chew me out for it too, said I was pouring weak concrete and I'd be back patching cracks in a year. He was right, because that driveway looked like a road map by the next spring. Once I switched to a plasticizer and left the water alone, the finish started coming out way better and the cracks pretty much stopped.