Tried a power trowel on a small garage slab and it wrecked the edge work

Last Tuesday I poured a 20x22 garage slab and decided to use a power trowel for the first time on a job that size. Every older guy I know swore by hand finishing small slabs for control. I figured they were just set in their ways. Got the machine on there and within 10 minutes it pulled the edges and left a wavy surface near the forms. Took me an extra hour with a hand float and edger to fix the mess. Learned my lesson that power trowels work great on big warehouse floors but not tight residential garages. Any of you guys had the same issue on smaller pours?

3 comments

3 Comments

gray_hall417d agoMost Upvoted

Feel your pain man... I did the exact same thing on my first slab last year. Spent more time fixing the damage than it would've taken to just finish it by hand.

tessap9717d ago

Hand tools are slower but they never wreck your work. Every time I rush with power tools I end up making extra work for myself. Slow and steady really does win this race.

fisher.jessica17d ago

That second pic shows exactly why I switched to a spokeshave for the final passes. Three years of making that same mistake before I learned to stop trusting the sander for anything other than rough shaping.