Waxahachie, TX Owner Build - A race to beat the baby!

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Problems with my concrete: We had some rain last night, and I misted the concrete just a little while ago. These pock marks showed up in one specific fairly large area. It's like bubbles formed under a thin later of concrete and lifted up the surface, causing a pock with a crack at the top. You can press them back down, but surely they won't reattach to the concrete below. I flaked one off and it left a rough spot.

I'm going to send photos to the concrete guy to see what they can do about this, but I wanted to be armed with more information first. Any thoughts on what happened?

For what it's worth, this is the area they started on, and also went back to at the very end. Thanks for your help!





 
I'm pretty sure those are concrete blisters, from the top being sealed and curing at a different rate than the bottom layers. Not sure how you resolve this -- recoat? replace? Hopefully Brian or Al can weigh in soon.
 
Helen203 said:
I'm pretty sure those are concrete blisters, from the top being sealed and curing at a different rate than the bottom layers. Not sure how you resolve this -- recoat? replace? Hopefully Brian or Al can weigh in soon.
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Thanks Helen. I think you're right. Now that I have something to search for on google, what comes up is exactly what I have. Not good.
 
The surface was troweled before all the bleed water had risen. The blisters are formed from the water and small pockets of air trying to escape but were held in place. There really isn't a remedy for this. How big of an area is it? How wet was the ground before the pour?

The rain shouldn't have had any effect on this. No doubt there was too much water in the mix and troweling began way too early.
 
bdavis466 said:
The surface was troweled before all the bleed water had risen. The blisters are formed from the water and small pockets of air trying to escape but were held in place. There really isn't a remedy for this. How big of an area is it? How wet was the ground before the pour?

The rain shouldn't have had any effect on this. No doubt there was too much water in the mix and troweling began way too early.
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The area is a 12x12 square section beside the pergola, but the blisters extend slightly toward the pool in front of the pergola. They did not seem to appear around the rest of the pool, at least not when I first noticed them popping up in the area I must metntioned.

The concrete was definitely very wet. The owner of the company said they would use a dry mix (3-4" slump) when I asked him specifically since I had read it needed to be less than 5", but when work was being done on the day, and I brought it to the attention of the foreman that the concrete seemed way too wet, he wouldn't hear it and put me off. He'd already given me pushback on how the diving board jig was supposed to be installed (I had the directions in hand) and was pretty fed up with me. So I took video of how wet it looked to have on record. This particular area was definitely very sloppy when they poured it.

I don't think the subsurface was particularly wet in this area, but it is in the shade this time of year so may have been wetter than areas farther out around the pool. The ground was also cold, because they started early in the morning and it had gotten in the low to mid 30s overnight.

We'll see what the owner will do about it. Even if I want to coat the surface to hide the delaminations, I will need to have them all pulled up so they don't come up later once the spray coating is applied.
 
Helen203 said:
I am sorry for you to see this wrinkle, but I know YOU know its just a wrinkle and it can and will be addressed to your satisfaction.
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Thank you, Helen. That is very kind. I know this is very minor in the grand scheme of things. I just need to be detached and maintain perspective. I do hope it will all work out though.
 
Marlahoutex said:
So is it pocked like a salt finish would be?
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No, I don't think so. These pocks (or blisters, which is actually a better description), are a dime to quarter size area of the concrete surface that has delaminated from the underlying slab, raising up to look like a bubble or blister. They then flake off and leave a very thin part of the concrete that is missing.

I guess if this condition is going to be there, it's better to have it show up sooner rather than later. Somehow we need to take care of all of the delaminations before anything cosmetic can be done.
 
Sounds like some of the contractors and tradies are the same the world over (we always do it this way, we never do it that way, we haven't done that for 20 years, blah blah blah).

I can see your skin getting thicker!!
 

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Either sandblasting or grinding would work. Are you still planning on some sort of coating on the deck? If so, that will hide any of the imperfections so long as the loose pieces and blisters are removed down to where the concrete is free of imperfections.
 
bdavis466 said:
Either sandblasting or grinding would work. Are you still planning on some sort of coating on the deck? If so, that will hide any of the imperfections so long as the loose pieces and blisters are removed down to where the concrete is free of imperfections.
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Thanks, Brian. We had always hoped that we could eventually do a coating on the deck, but thought we would put it off to save money right now. But I'm exploring my avenues for having the concrete guy resolve this. I know the delaminations have to be removed if we want to coat the deck, otherwise the coating will chip off too. Once that basic issue is taken care of, we will see how coating will fit in to it all.

I texted the owner with pictures this afternoon but haven't heard back. I will call Monday if I don't hear anything.
 
Update on the concrete blisters: God is good! I spoke with the representative from the concrete company this morning (turns out he's not the owner like I thought, but very responsive.) He hadn't got my text from Saturday with the pictures of the problem since he doesn't use that phone on the weekends, so that's why I hadn't heard back from him. He told me he had got my text this morning and had already been in touch with the owner about the problem. I should be hearing from the owner soon (who's the one who deals with these sorts of issues) and he should be out this week to take a look.

The short of it is that they do indeed stand behind their work like I had been led to believe in my initial dealings with the representative, and I'll be getting a free SprayDek out of this! We just need to wait the full 28 days for the concrete to cure and to manifest all of the problem areas, then there are several methods they can use to get the compromised top surface fully removed before coating. We could have the option of a complete removal and repour, but since the issue is not structural and we wanted a coating on the deck anyway, I think this will work out very well for us. I don't think I'd want to deal with the mess and delay of them jackhammering out the existing concrete if I can help it.

So, a little stress and anxiety seems like it has turned out in our favor. We will need to wait longer to say the deck is "done", but it shouldn't hold up the rest of the things we need to do to get the pool completed.
 

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