View Single Post
  #1   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair
Dan_Musicant Dan_Musicant is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 265
Default Curing concrete in cold conditions

A book I have indicates it's best for your concrete to cure when it's
warm. It said over 70 degrees would be good. It had instructions if it's
50 - 70 degrees. However, it's colder than that here right now.

The plumbers who did my trenchless sewer lateral replacement did some
concrete work, patching up some concrete where they had to dig holes to
do the work. They did this a bit over a week ago and it looks to me like
the concrete is curing very slowly. These guys didn't measure when they
mixed the concrete. Mostly, they used Quickcrete (or something like
that), bags of ready mixed dry to which they added water by squirting
water in with a hose. They'd mix it some, and then add some more water
or some dry cement depending on how it appeared to them. It was chilly
then and it's only gotten chillier, for the most part.

It's been dry and days have had high temperatures from 48 to 55 and
nights have dropped to 31 to 34 since they did the work about 8 days
ago. Should I be spraying water on the patches to facilitate the curing?
Should I cover them? One of the patches looks as though it's virtually
not curing - shows no white streaks on at least half of it. The last
week has been unusually cold for around here and I can reasonably expect
daytime and nightime temperatures to increase 5-7 degrees shortly.
Thanks for any advice.

Dan