How do concrete companies handle daily tempuratures of over 95 degrees? do they batch with set delay or something similar that keeps it from setting too fast, what do they do in the summer in Australia or other super hot climates?

Here in the winter if its not too cold outside to pour they batch the concrete with hot water and calcium, It gets hot here in summer like today is 85 degrees, and the concrete flashes pretty fast here in this heat. But our summers are short and arent hot like that every day so theres nothing we do in summer with it.

Im sure in different places they do different things. But on of the things they do here is batch with chilled water and if the customer wants it they add retarder to it. Just keeps the concrete from setting as fast. Buys the finishers a little time sometimes. But here its harder to get the retarder because alot of the time, the customer doesnt want to pay the extra charge for it.

Chilled water , 2 percent retarter, flyash, I pumped 24 yards of 4,000 grout washed out after each truck they were and hour apart tomorrow I have 45 yards of 4,000 grout to pump.

in florida, they use retarder all the time. Normal 5000 w/ hrwr is good for about 30 min without recirculating. We did however do alot of night pours to stay out of the heat.

• 101 degrees here today and windy, we used hot water and 2%c just for fun, it was awesome seeing my guy run the hose from the seat of his power trowel!

LOL Grinder. Not much can be done, it's up to the customer/contractor to ante up to pay for the chems to make the job easy. It's amazing how many won't, and then stress over the job, and never learn. concrete is unforgiving and not so terribly easy to work with, unless you are willing to pay to make it easier.

It varies on location.Some don't do a darn thing,other may use a sprinkler on materials,some may use ice,some a stabilizer called delvo.As mentioned it's really not your call for delvo or anything that increases cost/integrity to end user.

Food for thought,gander over on the right side of this page.There you will find a link to fritz pak

http://www.fritzpak.com/

Do some reading on there admixtures.Keep in mind many operators do carry this stuff for a good reason.

Winter pumping is awesome... -40c(-40f), get to set up or kick it in warm tents, hate insulating the pipe tho.. not fun, but easy shop time.

My concern for you would be that you run a line pump and also, so you said in your last post usually don't have a place to wash.All I can recommend for you is to get with Fritz Pak or the like and carry what ever admixtures you deem appropriate.

Knowledge goes a long way, and I truly believe that you need to start seriously researching the Industry you are in if you want to survive. Just sounds to me that you are taking a lot of risk with limited knowledge.

Do your homework, all it takes is a telephone and good questions to the right experts and you will have all the answers you seek.

What you do with them is totally up to you. Good Luck.

If your pumping extremely slow more than 1 hour per truck try to get supt. to order smaller loads.  Keep in contact with ready mix supplier through the driver on eta of next load. Also have the driver tell you when he has 1/2 yard left and add a couple gallons if you can.  Always be ready with a back up plan and stay cool

i am in queensland australia. sort of middle but northish of the aust east coast. we use retarder here but only in the absolute heat of summer. some people use "speed" in winter if the slab is in the shade but its not really common. i instruct my operators in summer, "if the load in the pump gets too old and its getting risky, suck the boom back and wash out immediately." its cheaper to pay for a bit of lost time or to clean up a washout than a twin wall pipeline on a 48m. 

Im in Melbourne Aust , the summer still gets hot down here and all we do is be very frigging carefull !!! Not ofter the supplyer will put a retarder in the conc so all we do is keep a very close eye on things ! Nothing beats the stress of pumping 70mpa in 40 c weather!!! Know what your pumping and your half way there!~

I'm in QLD as well. It can get really hot out here and it can get real sucky when you work out in the sticks and it takes upto an hour for the trucks to get here. But thankfully I'm only doing house slabs which is usually 20 to 25mpa so I'm safe here but I usually keep a very watchful eye on the setups. I'm just glad it's winter now! Easy to wash out, can leave concrete alone for upto an hour and half, just pump through a little bit every now and then.

do you guys ever pour icf foundations in australia? my mother moved to coffs harbour, NSW from canada several years ago and she was telling me that most of the houses built there have brick foundations rather than concrete and most have little or no insulation... is that common? the house she bought is only 10 years old.

I was just checking out the ICF foundations. I don't think we have them here in Australia nor have I come across any of them. We have waffle pods, monolithic slabs and brick/block work. But looking at the setup of ICF foundations it looks interesting.

i think that ICF would be awesome for you guys. because of the high insulation qualities you'd save a fortune on air conditioning costs, i've stood in the basement of an icf house in the middle of summer here with no a/c and it was NICE and cool!! cheers

Yea? That sounds like a good thing but however we don't have basements over here, they're rare though. Does that ICF apply to basements only or for the whole house?

Ive never seen it on a basement, but done a bunch of homes, some townhouses, and one warehouse sized building with 20ft walls. Did that one in two 10ft pours

you can actually do your whole house right to the rafters with icf forms, you would have to do it in 2 or 3 pours depending on the height of the house. They have special steel anchor plates for attaching your floor joists and everything.

we are currently pouring foundations for townhomes right now that are using icf foundations and i have done a big commercial center with condos upstairs and that entire structure was done with icf.