Good morning. 🐦🐦🐦
21 December 2025
Well, I poured the final phase of my driveway, and what an unpleasant adventure it turned out to be. The demolition went smoothly enough, thanks to a neighbor who needed the old concrete and had a dump truck. Without him, I’m not sure what the contractor would have done—I asked, but never got a coherent answer. The forms went in fine, and up to that point the job seemed on track.
The morning of the pour, though, they still hadn’t installed the reinforcement—no rebar, no wire grid, nothing. I had insisted on rebar and wire supported on proper metal or plastic rebar supports, commonly called chairs. I was hoping for something resembling professional engineering. Instead, the contractor ordered the concrete before the prep work was done, then showed up late, after the first truck had already been waiting more than half an hour. With the clock ticking, he rushed everything.
They dragged in the wire and rebar for the parking pad and threw together a haphazard grid. When I asked about the rebar chairs, he said they didn’t have any. So the pour went ahead with improvised, unstable supports, the rebar sliding around as they tried to hold it off the ground.
The driveway section went similarly, though I allowed wire only. I anticipated poor engineering and compensated by adding fiber to the concrete mix.
I will say the finishing ranged from okay to good—until the end.
The contractor wanted to remove the forms the same day. I told him no, that he needed to wait at least a day, which is best practice. I research the things I’m involved in. He ignored me and removed them, anyway, insisting he “does this all the time” and knows better than anything I could find online.
I paid him and left a terrible Angi review—primarily because he defied my instructions.
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