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A pour in Tacoma last fall showed me why you always check the subgrade
We were laying a 4 inch slab for a garage floor, and the homeowner swore he compacted the gravel base. After the first yard went down, I saw a section start to sink near the corner. Grabbed a probe and poked around, found a soft spot the size of a dinner plate where water had pooled. Had to stop, dig it out, and re-compact with a hand tamper, which set us back almost 2 hours. Anyone else had a job go sideways because of a hidden soft spot like that?
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tara64222d ago
My buddy's patio sank like a bad cake.
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ellis.faith22d ago
Oh man, that's the worst! I once spent a whole morning patting myself on the back for a perfectly smooth finish, only to come back after lunch and see a dip you could lose a golf ball in. Felt like the concrete itself was playing a joke on me. That little hidden soft spot turns you from a pro into a guy with a shovel real fast. Totally worth the extra time to find it though, like you said. A two hour fix beats a lifetime of explaining a cracked floor to a mad client.
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That sinking feeling when a solid base turns out to be anything but. It reminds me of how many things in life, from relationships to old cars, seem fine on the surface until you put a little weight on them and find the weak spot. You just can't skip the prep work, whether it's gravel or anything else meant to last. That two hour fix probably saved you from a major callback and a cracked slab down the road.
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