Got chewed out by an inspector on a job in Phoenix last July

He walked up while I was doing a hand trowel finish on a driveway and said my edges were gonna crack within a year because I wasn't wetting the forms before pouring. I had never bothered with that step, thought it was old school BS. He showed me the dry spots on the form board where the concrete was pulling away and you could see tiny gaps forming. So I started spraying the forms down with water before every pour, even on small slabs, and I haven't had an edge crack since. Has anyone else had an inspector call them out on something that actually made their work better?

2 comments

2 Comments

theabarnes29d ago

You're gonna laugh but I used to be the guy who thought wetting forms was a waste of time too. My old boss drilled it into me that it was old timer superstition and the concrete would just dry out anyway. Then I had a job in Tucson where the edges spiderwebbed on me three months later and I had to tear out a whole section. That was the moment I changed my mind. Now I hit the forms with a hose about five minutes before the truck shows up, just enough to dampen them without puddling. Haven't had that problem since.

elizabeth_ramirez29d ago

Hell yeah, I know exactly what you mean. My uncle ran a crew back in the 90s and he was the same way about wetting forms. He'd say it was just extra work for no reason and called it "city boy nonsense." Then we poured a walkway in July and the forms sucked all the moisture out of the edges before it even set up proper. Had to chip out a whole section with a hammer and chisel cause the edges crumbled like sand. Now I wet them every time too, even when it's humid. It's just not worth the risk.