Cold pour in January near Lethbridge finally clicked for me

I was doing a slab out by Picture Butte last month and the mix kept setting up before I could finish troweling. An old concrete guy watched me panic and told me to wet the forms and slow down my pace, which felt backwards in freezing temps. Has anyone else tried wetting forms on cold pours or am I just working with weird ground conditions?

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1 Comment

ben8275h ago

Man, that old timer knew what he was talking about. I used to think wetting anything on a cold pour was just asking for frost issues and figured you wanted everything bone dry to keep the heat in. But I tried it on a driveway edge last November after fighting the same bullshit you described, and the difference was night and day. That extra moisture kept the forms from sucking the water out so fast, so I actually had time to work the surface without it turning to paste on me. Weirdest part is the slab finished stronger and didn't craze like my other cold pours usually do. Maybe it's just the clay soil out here, but I'm sold on it now.