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An inspector's comment on a slab last year made me change my approach to curing
I was finishing a driveway in Austin last spring, nothing too fancy, just a standard broom finish. The city inspector came by and pointed out I wasn't wet curing long enough, only doing it for three days instead of the full seven. I always thought it was overkill, but he showed me some test cores from a job that failed from surface cracking. Now I take the extra time to keep the burlap wet for a full week, even on smaller residential jobs. Has anyone else had a strict inspector teach them something useful?
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sage_rodriguez14d ago
My burlap game was weak for years too, guess I was just winging it like a flat tire on a hot day.
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the_mia14d ago
That "flat tire on a hot day" line got me thinking about my first boss. He used to say bad curing was like trying to bake a cake and opening the oven every five minutes. I actually tested it once on a small backyard path, wet cured half for a week and let the other half just dry out. The difference was crazy, the dry half had all these little spider cracks after six months. Made me a believer even though I still grumble about hauling that extra hose around in the summer heat. You ever run into an inspector who was totally wrong about something?
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