Defective concrete...ONC please help.

pinkfairymagic · Feb 03, 2010 9:51 am

Hi Onc and other homeone members,

Here I am, 2 months after moving into our lovely new home with a huge disapointment with the perimiter concrete. We decided to go with 260m2 of black concrete which the concretor poured in three pours due to
staff and weather, the first pour went really well and still looks great, no cracks, the second and third pours
look TERRIBLE, cracks EVERYWHERE Please see pics below.

ONC I need some help desperalty PLEASE...I have called the concretor and told him, which he then came and had a look and agreed it was disgusting and he needed to rip these certain sections completly out and re-lay it, that was 4 weeks and and we haven't heard back since. Due to living in a VERY small town, we have heard
on the grapevine that there has been a couple of "*******" concrete batches made (at the concrete plant) and there are other people that arn't happy either due to whats happened to their concrete also, so who is at fault here??? If the concretor didn't know the concrete was ******* and never had trouble before is it still his fault/responsability??? Who do I need to be chasing up here...LEGALLY???

Whats the portocol/procedure for this sort of problem???

Heeeeeeellllppp!!!

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p371/brojas7906/1stFeb201012.jpg

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p371/brojas7906/1stFeb201030.jpg

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p371/brojas7906/1stFeb201023.jpg

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p371/brojas7906/1stFeb201027.jpg

suh · Feb 03, 2010 9:56 am

Oh dear

not good

pinkfairymagic · Feb 03, 2010 10:03 am

No Suh it's not good, I could cry!

I ain't going down without fighting though, it won't be staying like that I can tell you that right now!
The gloves are on...hahahaha

onc_artisan · Feb 03, 2010 10:08 am

Best thing to do is ask the manager of the batch plant to have a site visit.
Then they can decided the fault... could be a number of things.
If the batch plant suggests their conc is ok then it will be the granos fault.

onc_artisan · Feb 03, 2010 10:13 am

What is going on in the last photo?

pinkfairymagic · Feb 03, 2010 11:00 am

onc_artisan

What is going on in the last photo?

What do you mean?

onc_artisan · Feb 03, 2010 11:11 am

It is hard to tell what is going on...
It looks like tiles or something :th:

Lex · Feb 03, 2010 1:07 pm

Maybe that's an area around the "inverse" corner of the house, where 2 pathways meet, like on that picture just above the last one ... and they had to "divide" the different sections (sorry, not sure of the right terminology here) ... and then it just started chipping away at the joins ...

Aiah · Feb 03, 2010 2:41 pm

how long did they wait to put the saw cuts through?

Conc plant will blame the concretor, poor curing techniques, poor cracking control, was water added to the mix on site? Unless your contractor lays a large volume of concrete through the concrete company, i be suprised if they do anything about it.
Ive had a house slab crack up from "faulty concrete", was the same sort of thing, I wasn't an isolated case or the only one to complain. Tho they refused to officially admit responsibility, they did pay to cover the entire slab in kordon termite protection.

pinkfairymagic · Feb 03, 2010 3:06 pm

onc_artisan

It is hard to tell what is going on...
It looks like tiles or something :th:

Hey Onc not sure what ya mean by "tiles", it's def' concrete it's just chipped away at the corner, LEX is spot on.

cclarity to be completly honest I can't remember, not sure how precise I have to be but it was within 3 days?! Not sure if this helps, if I need to I can go back through notes and I may be able to figure it out.

Aiah · Feb 03, 2010 3:31 pm

Looks to me like the concrete had started to crack before the saw cuts were put in, they may not have been evident at the time of cutting.
did they use plastic? what type of day was it? That sandy ground looks like it would suck the moisture out of the concrete quite quickly, possibly shrinking and forming the cracks even on the day of the pour, even though the cracks are troweled out on the day, they begin at the bottom of the slab so they are still there they just do not show for a few days.

Lex · Feb 03, 2010 9:13 pm

"... came and had a look and agreed it was disgusting and he needed to rip these certain sections completly out and re-lay it, that was 4 weeks and and we haven't heard back since. ..."

OK, so have you called him again? Where are you at now?
He already agreed it needs redoing (verbally) (although he might change his story).
Do you know of any other people - what have they done? Class action :wink:

?

And, did you buy the concrete directly, or did he order it himself (and then just charged for for supply+"install")? I suppose if he did the whole lot, he is reposnsible to chase up the supplier and recoup his expense for redoing your job.

pinkfairymagic · Feb 04, 2010 6:44 pm

Hi Lex concretor supplied materials and labour. I have spoken to him today and he has told me he will
grind them out a bit more and use a product called eproxy to fill them in, not sure if this is the way to
go but he said he will be back this week but with this weather I highly doubt it.

The other people have complained and left it at that, I am as weak and will not allow so much $$$ to go
down the drain with a service/product I am not happy with, so will not just "let it slide".

cclarity: Concretor used black plastic, chairs and mesh, reinforced with steel dowling rods coming out of the house slab. The weather back then got to max 30degrees, min 10degrees in my area. Hopefully this will help
to determine what has happened.

Thanks everyone for your help I really appreciate it.
Hopefully we can come up with some answers as to what to do.

onc_artisan · Feb 04, 2010 7:30 pm

Oh yeh, grind them out... and repair with 'Epoxy', does he mean the control joints? I wonder :th:

If that is what he intends to do, then that will defeat the purpose of 'control jointing'.
'Control jointing' is an action that provides a line for which the impending crack will follow.
If he intends to 'repair' the concrete using epoxy I will be interested in the outcome,
as I have been using such products for the last 20 years and to get a 'match' with black concrete
will be something I want to see.
Would it not be easier and more aesthetic to remove the broken and damaged concrete and re-instate it??

I could be over the top here.. stop me if I am being too harsh.

pinkfairymagic · Feb 04, 2010 8:14 pm

onc_artisan

Oh yeh, grind them out... and repair with 'Epoxy', does he mean the control joints? I wonder :th:

If that is what he intends to do, then that will defeat the purpose of 'control jointing'.
'Control jointing' is an action that provides a line for which the impending crack will follow.
If he intends to 'repair' the concrete using epoxy I will be interested in the outcome,
as I have been using such products for the last 20 years and to get a 'match' with black concrete
will be something I want to see.
Would it not be easier and more aesthetic to remove the broken and damaged concrete and re-instate it??

I could be over the top here.. stop me if I am being too harsh.

Hi onc not harsha t all, I appreciate your input.
I believe he meant he was going to grind out the cracks and repair them, not the control joints and then
re-seal with the black sealer, as per other concrete.
I too am concerned about the aesthetics of it all, but HE WILL be back to fix it once again if it doesn't look right or I will sue his a$$...lol I will be sure to post pics of works once completed.

keen · Feb 04, 2010 10:33 pm

Moral of the story ?
Don't pi$$ off the fairies !!!

humcomfort · Feb 05, 2010 6:10 pm

Sounds like your concretor is doing the best he can with a bad situation.

Properly done, the epoxy will give enough flexibility to fill cracks and allow for movement in weakness area, however it will certainly be noticable - there is no way around it.

Whilst I'm sure you have paid good money for job, I would suggest a compromise of some degree....suggest that filling of cracks ok, but you pay cost of materials, he supply the labour (or pay experienced person) to do spray-on resurfacing which will give you an even quality finish.

Tend to find going hard-nosed legal threats makes matters worse and the whole things turns nasty fast and no-one really wins.

Do wish you luck though - certainly a nightmare.

onc_artisan · Feb 05, 2010 6:33 pm

Interesting... why would the client pay for repair materials?
The client wanted a job 'as new' not repaired.
If there was an issue with the concrete then the grano should be able to negotiate
with the concrete plant for rectification, or reinstatement.
I thought a quote for works was an all up quote?

Yes it went wrong... was it the clients fault??
I suggest the cracking was because of faulty workmanship or,
if the concrete was faulty it would have been noticed during placement.

Have we had a job go wrong? yes, what did we do? Talk to the client and work up a resolution.
If the client exerted their right to a new placement then that is what happened.

I don't see an issue, just fix it.

Aiah · Feb 05, 2010 8:09 pm

^^ i agree

clients shouldn't have to foot the bill for anything here, the inconvenience is enough.

It would be quite simple to cut out the offending sections and re pour them.

Dont go for the crack repair, cause thats what it will always look like, a repaired crack.

Lex · Feb 06, 2010 8:23 pm

^^^ Yep, me too.
Enough already with settling for something you never ever dreamed of (well, definitely not dreamed of :wink:

)!