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Unpopular opinion: I pour the mud in the shade first now
Last summer I was finishing a 40 by 20 slab out in Grand Prairie and the sun was just cooking the surface before I could even get a float on it. I started pulling my mud from the back of the truck that was parked in the shade and immediately working the shaded half of the pour. The stuff that sat in the sun got crusty in like 10 mins but the shaded mud stayed workable almost twice as long. My boss thought I was nuts for moving the chute but we got the whole slab without a single cold joint. Has anyone else messed with where they stage their mud to fight the heat?
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phoenix_lewis10d ago
Read a thing from some old concrete guy about treating your mix like it was produce at a farmers market, keep it out of direct sun or it goes bad on you. He said staging in shade can buy you 40 minutes or more on a hot day, which lines up with what you saw on that slab. Heat pulls the water out of the mix fast, and once that surface skins over you are fighting a losing battle with the float. The part most guys miss is the truck itself, that metal drum just soaks up sun and bakes the load before it even hits the chute. Smart move parking in the shade and working the shaded half first, that is just paying attention to what the mud is telling you.
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