Three years of pouring driveways in Boise changed my mind on fiber mesh

I used to run plain wire mesh on every residential slab because that's what my old boss did. Last month I did two side-by-side 20x30 pads with fiber additive on one and traditional wire on the other, and the fiber one had zero cracking while the wire one showed hairline stress by day three. Has anyone else switched completely off wire mesh, or am I just getting lucky with this Boise clay soil?

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john64818d ago

I read a study from some concrete group a while back that said fiber helps most with plastic shrinkage cracking, the kind you get in the first day or two while it cures. Wire mesh does almost nothing for that because it sits too low in the slab to catch those early cracks. That lines up with what you saw, the wire pad cracking by day three. The Boise clay might be helping too but the fiber is doing real work there.

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