Disagreed with the crew about using accelerators in 90 degree heat at that job in Phoenix

We were pouring a slab for a warehouse near the 101 freeway last July, and the foreman wanted to dump calcium chloride to speed things up. I argued we'd be fighting flash set and end up with a mess, but he overruled me. Sure enough, we had two guys running finish on a section that went off in under 20 minutes, and the surface looked like a railroad track. Has anyone else had a boss push accelerators when the ambient temp is already pushing 105?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin21827d ago

Man that's brutal... I've been there before and it just never ends well. A foreman pushing accelerators in 105 degree heat is asking for trouble, plain and simple. Concrete sets fast enough on its own when it's that hot, adding calcium is just playing with fire. You end up with a nightmare for the finishers and a slab that's probably gonna crack or dust out later. Sorry you had to deal with that fallout, sounds like you knew exactly what was coming.

lucasking27d ago

Yeah, "playing with fire" is exactly the right way to put it. I had a similar situation a few years back where the super insisted on adding extra accelerator to a parking deck pour on a 98 degree day. We all told him it was a bad idea, but he didn't listen. Ended up with a section that set up so fast the finishers couldn't even get a broom finish on it before it crusted over. We were out there with water hoses trying to slow it down, and it still looked like a mess when we left.