Had a talk with an old mason about curing concrete and it changed my mind

He told me spraying water once a day is useless, you gotta keep it wet for a full week with burlap and soaker hoses. I always thought more watering was better, but he showed me test cores from a slab we did together last month and the difference was huge. Has anyone else switched up their curing routine after hearing from a seasoned guy?

2 comments

2 Comments

kellyallen1d ago

My uncle did concrete for 30 years and told me the same thing. Spraying once a day just makes the surface wet, the middle stays dry and cracks. We did a driveway last summer with wet burlap and soaker hoses for 7 days straight, none of those hairline cracks showed up. The old guy I work with now says most people kill their slabs in the first 48 hours by letting them dry out too fast. I'll never go back to just spraying it once a day again, it's a total waste of time.

-1

zarat371d ago

My neighbor's a structural engineer and he told me something that blew my mind about this. He says the real issue isn't just keeping the concrete moist, it's keeping the temperature stable too. When you spray it once a day and let it dry out, the surface heats up in the sun while the middle stays cool from the moisture underneath. That temperature difference creates stress that pulls the concrete apart from the inside out. He showed me this study from some university where they measured surface temps hitting 120 degrees while the middle was still 70 degrees, that's a 50 degree swing. So even if you're wetting it, if you're not covering it with burlap or blankets to block the sun, you're still cooking the top layer.