Placing concrete driveways in Ohio & the Midwest

Good morning! I just returned from a "photoshoot" as the photographer of the guys placing a concrete sidewalk and garage apron for a homeowner. It is going to look great, and I can't wait to see the finished product. It is regular concrete with a broom finish, pretty standard, but with a stenciled border. The homeowner's choice of stencil was a keystone pattern. The colors are Brickform color hardeners of Terra Cotta with a hint of Cappuccino, which will perfectly pull out the stone on the porch. The stone is opposite; more of a cappuccino color with a hint of terra cotta. I will have to return with pictures of the final product. Don't let me forget!

Part of the reason for my post is to warn you about placing a driveway past the middle of October. This will be our last driveway/apron placement for the year. Even though the homeowners can drive on their new apron in 10 days, (allowing it time to cure enough before driving on it for this time of year,) it really is still curing for many days to follow. At temperatures just above freezing, fresh concrete hardens very slowly.  However, concrete made and cast at low temperatures may eventually be stronger and more durable than concrete made during warm weather provided it is cured long enough and does not freeze. In this initial few months, the concrete is more susceptible to damage caused by salts and deicers, and this can include road salts dropped from vehicles.

"Owners should not use salt or other deicers during the first winter, especially if concrete was placed after mid September and was not air dried and sealed." (As stated in a brochure from the Ohio Ready Mixed Concrete Association. www.ohioconcrete.org) We suggest using sand instead to improve traction. Or a trick we have found helpful is to clear the snow immediately after falling and before foot or auto traffic has packed it down. The sun and air will do it's magic and clear any remaining snow very quickly. NEVER use any deicer that contains either ammonium sulfate or ammonium nitrate (fertilizers.) It will react with the concrete and cause damage.

Thanks to our friends at Ohio Ready Mix for delivering the concrete today. It is great to work with another quality company! www.ohioreadymix.com

Blessings to you and your family. I hope to talk to you again soon! Let me know if you have any questions!

Satisfied business in Union County

A recent industrial customer in Union County sent this note via email. "I wanted to pass along my thoughts on the recent work Yoder Concrete performed (for us.) I am very pleased with the outcome of the concrete work, it looks nice and was done in a timely fashion, given the tight work environment of the small building they had to work in. We will definitely contact you for future concrete considerations." Thank you to Bud for the good words and for the business. We look forward to working with them in the future. 

Control joints control cracking - most of the time

Cracks in concrete are a sore subject for any concrete contractor. No one likes to see in cracks in their concrete. Sometimes customers want a guarantee that their concrete won't crack.  So what can we do about it?

First of all there is a good chance that your concrete will crack. With the settling and movement of the earth and the freezing & thawing here in Ohio, there is a much better chance of cracking than not. We would be more likely to guarantee that you will get a crack than not. Does that make us a bad concrete contractor and that we don't know what we are doing? Absolutely not. Please keep reading.

Cracks followed he tooled control joints

The first thing a good contractor like Yoder Concrete Construction, LLC will do is to make sure the concrete is placed on a mechanically compacted based. We typically use a gravel or limestone mixed with dust that compacts very well.

The next thing to do is not preventing cracks, but controlling them with control joints.

Control joints are strategically placed cuts, expansion strips or lines tooled into the concrete with the intent that any cracking that might occur in the slab will follow these weakened joints. They are placed at predetermined locations based upon the thickness and width of the slab or often at corner or posts. In the picture above, you might be able to see that a crack followed the joint that the contractor placed in the concrete sidewalk. The crack is hidden in the joint and not greatly visible to the eye. In the absence of the control joint, the crack would have been very random and visibly distracting.

Does the crack always follow the control joint?  Unfortunately no. See the picture above. I had to take this picture. I was amazed. There are three control joints at the corner of this sidewalk, and the crack chose to randomly take its own path. Was this the fault of the contractor? Not at all. Cracks will do their own thing. We can only do our best to control them.

Occasionally we will have a customer that does not want control joints in their concrete. That is an acceptable decision, but they need to remember that there is always a chance of cracking, and it will occur randomly. The sidewalk shown above is stamped in a random stone pattern with a solid border. Because of the random pattern, the customer chose not to put a straight line in the walk. A control joint would not have prevented the crack, but would have hidden the crack in a straight line. 

I hope this post clarifies concrete cracking and what we do about it. Do you still have questions? Please let me know. I'd love to hear your opinion on this!

Concrete pavement placed in Marion, OH

Job complete! Our guys did a great job up in Marion, OH at the Bunge NA plant replacing existing asphalt and concrete pavement that had seen its better days. Eight inches of concrete was placed over a steel reinforced and compacted stone base for a run of about 422 feet long. They placed 217 cubic yards of concrete in three days. I hear the semi truck drivers think they are on a runway now!

I want to thank our primary suppliers for this project: Hensel Ready Mix for supplying the concrete, White Cap Construction Supply for supplying and delivering the steel, cure and other materials, Concrete Coring Company and Smith Materials for assisting with the removal process of the existing pavement. A thank you, also, to Mark Pardi at Ohio Concrete for the prospectus on the job as shown above. Go Concrete!

Great job to our employees and all of those involved. They worked their tails off in the 90 degree heat and high humidity, and then went right into another similar job at Midwest Express near Marysville. Kudos to all!