What It’s Like Working in a Concrete Company

It was a short interview over the phone. The main reason I was hired was because of my driving license. It is hard sometimes for this type of company to get a licensed driver.

I can’t tell you how much dirt I shoveled working with this company. Its not something as simple as just making a hole in the ground. You have to dig footers and they have to be precise on measurements. Also when building a foundation for a house, you have to get a precise grade over it, along with the footers.

The reason for the grade, is the concrete that goes over it has to be a certain thickness. With the foundations I worked on, the grade was normally 4 inches. And the footers on those foundations where sometimes 12 feet deep, and 4 feet wide.

The digging would sometimes be a real challenge. I helped dig through oyster beds, rust piles and masses of roots. There are some other hard to dig up foundations. The only time we could not do it, was on very tightly packed lime rock. That job required heavy equipment.

Usually after the footers and grade is finished. The bug man will come out and spray the foundation. After the foundation had been sprayed, we then put visqueen (plastic) on it.

Laying down the plastic involved having it cut for the plumbing work. Ounce we would get the plastic down, I would go and patch up the holes in it. The plastic has to be one solid piece all the way around. And when we would cut for the plumbing work, I had to patch around that and make it solid.

Then the rebar gets put in. I have found that the hardest part about putting in the rebar, was cutting the pieces. The rebar gets cut with either the cutter, or the chop saw. The chop saw can be faster, but the job is supposed to be done with the cutter.

We ran rebar down all the footers on the foundation we prepped. The rebar is there to give strength to the concrete.

The footers are located where the framers are going to put up the walls. This puts the weight of the house on the footers.

After the prep work is finished, it is time to poor the concrete. We normally only started the concrete pouring in the morning on a fresh day. The finishers would say that their favorite part of the job, is pouring the concrete.

We guided the concrete trucks up to the slab, and then started the poor. First the footers along the edge gets poured, and we would usually empty one to two trucks on that. Next working on a strategy, we poured the concrete onto the foundation.

When the concrete hits the foundation, then its time to level it out with our cumber longs. The idea here is to try and get it a little bit over the 4 inches. Making it to low would cause problems, which would mean some labor pain. To high would also cause some labor pains, but is more desired to have it to high, then to low.

After the concrete had been poured out, and we worked it with the cumber longs. It was time to use the screte board. The screte board is a straight edge, and this is how we would make the grade perfectly on 4 inches.

The way it works is you drag it across the top of the concrete, following the four inch grade. This scraps the service on 4 inches, making it near perfect.

As we are still pouring concrete, the concrete is also setting. This is where it is going through its chemical change and become a solid. The pouring and screting has got to be done on time.

After its been poured, the concrete finishers get their tools out and start working the mud. They use a float first to float the edges, and then a trial to polish it.

The float tool floats the mud over the rocks. It pushes the rocks down, and pulls the concrete up. This puts the concrete over the rocks, and allows the finish to give it a smooth top.

Out on the middle of the foundation or slab, is where the trial machine is working. The trial machine is a tool that has rotating trial blades on the bottom. This is much faster and easier way to finish the slab, than using all hand tools.

With all this together, the slab gets a finished work over the whole service.

While the finish work is being done, the form work also gets pulled down. The form work is what forms the slab. These are boards (or metal) that are staked up, and designed to hold the concrete in its place and shape.

We would poor about two slabs a week. This schedule keeps us busy, and also the guys that come behind us going. If the concrete work slacks, then we are also hurting the framers, and the men that come behind them.

Concrete work has its challenges and is rewarding. It is a valuable skill or trade to obtain. When going into concrete, know that there is some hard manual labor that is needed to be done.