As you may well know, poured my floor slab this morning. Anything need doing to it? Wetting? Covering? Just leaving well alone? How long before it's walkable on?
New floor slab aftercare
- Thread starter pilsbury
- Start date
pilsbury, good evening.
When I was in charge of placing slabs either with a tamped finish or indeed power floated there was a Specification requirement to keep the top surface of the Concrete WET!!
The trick is that you have to wait until the top surface of the Concrete hardens just enough to bear your weight, that time scale varied violently, and is dependent on Temperature / Wind / General Humidity and the Concrete mix itself.
Suggest you Google Curing Concrete, there is a load of information on the Web [faster for you than me trying to type?]
One common medium was to use Hessian over the new concrete and then flood the top surface of the Concrete with water from a hose. If you are confident enough let the Hose run all night.
Why wet the top surface? to satisfy the Chemical reaction and very rapid hydration of water away from the new Concrete, keeping the Concrete wet assists to prevent surface cracks and micro-Cracks.
Hope this assists??
Ken.
When I was in charge of placing slabs either with a tamped finish or indeed power floated there was a Specification requirement to keep the top surface of the Concrete WET!!
The trick is that you have to wait until the top surface of the Concrete hardens just enough to bear your weight, that time scale varied violently, and is dependent on Temperature / Wind / General Humidity and the Concrete mix itself.
Suggest you Google Curing Concrete, there is a load of information on the Web [faster for you than me trying to type?]
One common medium was to use Hessian over the new concrete and then flood the top surface of the Concrete with water from a hose. If you are confident enough let the Hose run all night.
Why wet the top surface? to satisfy the Chemical reaction and very rapid hydration of water away from the new Concrete, keeping the Concrete wet assists to prevent surface cracks and micro-Cracks.
Hope this assists??
Ken.
having hosed it, if you cover it with plastic sheet (held down at the edges to prevent blowing up) this will prevent evaporation. Add more water if it shows signs of drying out, especially in this hot sunny weather. Dull, drizzly weather is good for concrete.
Two weeks is a reasonable time, a month is better. It will harden and gain strength all the time it is kept wet. Once it dries this will stop, even if you re-wet it.
If you have to expose it during building work, hose it and recover as soon as possible to prevent it drying.
Two weeks is a reasonable time, a month is better. It will harden and gain strength all the time it is kept wet. Once it dries this will stop, even if you re-wet it.
If you have to expose it during building work, hose it and recover as soon as possible to prevent it drying.
Crikey - this beast needs a lot of attention! Out with the hose now. Looks like some rain showers tonight and for the next couple of days. Bonus
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Apparently having a first baby is the same, you do everything as perfectly as you can just to be on the safe side. 
I'd probably spray it a bit to stop the surface drying out before the mortar went off and cover for a few days, but there will be so much water inside the slab it won't really dry out too early!
Ps I'm not a builder but I've been mixing up small amounts of concrete and using them for various tasks. But nothing as big as a slab
I'd probably spray it a bit to stop the surface drying out before the mortar went off and cover for a few days, but there will be so much water inside the slab it won't really dry out too early!Ps I'm not a builder but I've been mixing up small amounts of concrete and using them for various tasks. But nothing as big as a slab
As this is your floor finish and not the sub base you're better off being a bit more careful with it drying out too quickly but really as long as it's not too sunny and windy to can get away with leaving it alone. Unless it was scc which needs to be covered.
SCC? What's that?
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