Max amount of water in concrete

How many gallons of water added to 9 cu yds of 5 slump would you consider max before
quility was overly effected? None is certainly best but how much could you compromise
in the interest of allowing limited help to place and finish material? How many
gallons would it take for you to refuse paying a contractor?

You are correct to be concerned about having too much water! I have only used sakrete in the last few years, so I just follow the instructions on the bag. I poured the concrete dome on this deer stand about 10 years ago, started early in the morning and mixed it kind of dry.

When I googled it I found this answer to your question. It may vary a little depending on the moisture in the aggregate.

In order to have enough water to possibly enable complete hydration of the cement, approximately 20 pounds of water to every 100 pounds of cement is necessary.

Do we need more information? From reading between the lines it appears you had a recent 'not so satisfactory' incident.

Wow that's sure nice. The guy next door use to do all kinds of work like that then unfortunately he got dementia and it is to bad. Very nice guy was going to do a fire place out back by the ponds and gazebo.

5" slump is already too wet in spec is 4".If you want it easier to work use a super plasticizer.

Contractor probably wanted, or did, add another twenty gallon. That seems to be the norm around flat work contractors. They run two shovels into the top of the chute and yell add twenty. They want it to flow easy, alot less work to sceed and puddle. A five inch slump is the norm for hand work in most municipalities. I hope you held the line at your 5 in slump. Your the one paying and living with that concrete FOREVER. If they indeed added twenty as is the norm, it will probably be ok. You may never see the difference between a 4 inch slump slab and a 5-5 1/2. Concrete is pretty forgiving. I've cast THOUSANDS of cylinders and beams in my 19 year career as a construction inspector. Rarely did the cylinders or beams not pass strength testing and those that did, core samples were taken from the cast in place concrete, tested and passed. Hope this helps you sleep better. BTW in that 19 year career, I never liked to have to reject a load of concrete, BUT I DID. gobble

Kind of a loaded question. Water evaporates so more is added to keep the concrete from setting. The goal is to keep the consistency the same. No difference than a brick mason adding it to keep his mud consistent. It won't hurt a thing as long as the consistency is stable.

No--completely wrong--yes it will make it more workable but it destroys its strength and adhesion---we have always used a retarder/densifyer to delay the set but keep it workable--super plasticizers work well also

all the specs i have used and written do not allow any slump over 4 inches--its just too wet then and ruins the quality

Kind of a hard question to answer. How far did the truck travel before he got to your place? Was there any left in the drum when they batched your load? Was it a hot, wind day where the aggregate was dry? How fast did they shut the water off at the plant when they batched it? A lot of variables when getting a load of concrete. Then there is the difference in loads on cement they get. I've had 1 load come out and poured really nice. Next load from same place delivered right after the first, you couldn't hardly do anything with it.

As you probably suspected,I did have an issue. Contractor furnished material and labor so I asked for and looked at delivery ticket. Ticket said 5 slump and 20 gallons added at job site. I called dispatcher and asked if he would ask driver if they had a look at what was in mixer before adding water. Driver said water was added before any came down chute. My guess is batch arrived with more than 5 slump and finishers asked for water before seeing mud. When I came by while they were pouring,the material continued moving a few inches after come-a-long stopped and mud sank within 2" of level soon as it hit ground. Compounding the situation,they didn't use dobies. I'm not a fan of "lifting" steel but didn't cover that in scope of work. I see no way steel didn't sink before mix stiffened. Didn't have a cone nearby so they continued. Here's how I'm attempting to do what's right for everyone. Contractor will saw cut a cube out tomorrow. If steel is 2" or more off bottom of 5"slab AND aggrate is evenly distributed I will pay aggred price. If not,I will pay what i think it's worth. It's only a storage building but I contracted at going rate for flatwork. Any suggestions on doing what's best for all involved.

Unfortunately yours is a typical pour that isn't inspected.Spent 25 years in the concrete industry I'd say 95% of all concrete poured without an inspector
around was out of spec in some way or the other.You'll have dusting issues down the road at some point at the very least and almost certainly shrinkage cracks.

That's about the coolest deer stand I've ever seen.

My next door neighbor claims to be THE whistle blower on the big dig in Boston. As trucks waiting in line approached their 90 minute time limit for the batch they would pull out and go the 6 blocks back to the plant and take on another few hundred gallons of water and get a new ticket for the load. That would cool the batch back down so that they could then return to the line for the pump. Allegedly some 5,000 loads were involved. six employees were indicted but not convicted and some elected officials returned some campaign donations.

It boils down to the water/cement ratio. Excluding all other ingredients, the higher the water/cement ratio is, the lower the strength of the finished product. This time of year it is common to use hot water and calcium chloride in the mix. It's a compromise, not always beneficial to the strength of the finished product, but often used to "get the job done". When you hire someone to do concrete work in unfavorable temperature conditions you can expect compromises. "Chairs" are readily available to support the reinforcement. There is no excuse for not using reinforcement supports, other that a cheaper bid price.

Limited help is the fault of the contractor. I was a construction inspector for 35 years. I rejected many loads of concrete - usually for load time expired because of poor planning/limited help. I stood up for the people that I worked for.

ON all my concrete projects we had an inspector in the plant supervising the batching and one at the job site supervising the pouring---the driver was given one of our batch tickets and was collected at the job site so none of the loads could be delivered twice

We never allowed calcium chloride in any of the concrete mixes I poured--it will eventually corrode any steel in the concrete and diminish durability---we required insulated forms in cold weather and recording thermometers in the concrete

When I was inspecting concrete for curb and gutter i had to reject anything over 3.5 inches of slump