Walked a driveway job in Phoenix yesterday and it hit me how different things are now

I was finishing a residential driveway on 35th Avenue yesterday and remembered my first big pour back in 2011. Back then we had to hand trowel and wait for the sun to cure it just right. Now I had a curing compound and a power trowel running in half the time. Anyone else feel like the trade moved faster than they expected over the last 10 years?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaronsullivan13d ago

Back in 2011 I was on a crew in Mesa using a wheelbarrow and a hand tamper for a small sidewalk. Now guys roll up with a laser screed and GPS on the excavator and I feel like a dinosaur. I joke that concrete went from caveman tools to a NASA mission in ten years. But hey, at least when the power trowel breaks down we still remember how to do it the old way, right? We just complain a lot louder about it now.

claire87213d ago

Nodded along reading this because I had the same wakeup call last month on a job in Goodyear. I was mixing in a polymer additive while the younger kid on the crew was just tapping settings into a computer for a robotic screed and I realized how much I take that stuff for granted now. Makes me laugh when I think about the summers I spent hunched over with a hand float and now I just press a button and watch the machine do the work (while I stand in the shade complaining about the heat).

the_hayden12d ago

The younger kid tapping settings into a computer" is so real. It's weird being the one who remembers the sore back and sunburn from hand floating, and now you just watch the robot do it while you stand in the shade griping. Feels like we earned our stripes the hard way and the new guys just got handed a cheat code.