Concrete patio nightmare, what would you have done

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  • radar8756

    Works for Me
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    12   0   1
    Sep 21, 2010
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    Westville, IN
    ...
    Side question, how is fiber in a concrete patio a bad thing? Sorry for the derail.

    My patio was back ~ 2007 ... and I had not heard about Fiber in Concrete before ...
    google says it was invented in 1847 - but didn't catch on in the building trade until the 1960's
     

    wagyu52

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    Sep 4, 2011
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    South of cob corner
    My advice is try not to let it destroy the relationship again.

    Mistakes were made on both sides, at least talk to him. He may have just been to embarrassed to say he was in over his head. I personally would have shut it down when the sod was not removed.

    Life's too short. Hopefully lessons were learned.

    This is a guy that told his father and step mom within the last 10-12 years of their lives they would never see him agin cause they refused to give him money. He held true to that and only came around after she died in 2021, but his step mom left him nothing.

    My wife and her sister against the wishes of their step mom shared some of the estate with him, I gave him choice of the tools I collected from his grandfather’s collection in hopes that we could heal and start fresh. Yes he was over his head, I knew it when we started but he had a great sales pitch and photos to back it up.

    Went farther into this then I wanted for my wife and her sister to have their brother back and give him a chance to prove himself successful. With every passing day and him not manning up and owning what is clearly a horrid job or even asking what my problem is only proves my gut feelings about him are true, he’s the same at 55 as he was at 35 can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
     

    BluePig

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    3   0   0
    May 10, 2012
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    Middlebury
    Judus Priest bro...
    Lessons learned I guess.
    You know if Ted Geyer was alive, he would have smacked you in the back of your head.
    I only met him a couple of times, but I knew he was as worthless as tips on a boar.
    Maybe you guys need to come up North for family functions.
    Less drama.
     

    wagyu52

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    31   0   0
    Sep 4, 2011
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    South of cob corner
    All gone back to square one. Got a new guy putting a design together, told him the bad concrete would be gone this week and I would pile the stone back up so he would have a clean slate.
    Now what to do with 10 yards of busted up concrete slabs
    IMG_3075.jpeg IMG_3076.jpeg IMG_3070.jpeg IMG_3072.jpeg IMG_3073.jpeg
     

    jagee

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    24   0   0
    Jan 19, 2013
    44,416
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    New Palestine
    I know I'm just "some guy on the internet" but I'm in the quality department for the largest concrete construction company in the state. Reach out if you'd like to discuss anything.

    My notes:
    * Remove grass/topsoil and put down/compact 53s.
    * Forms can do a lot, concrete just fills the forms. You want radius corners, then they just form radius corners.
    * Personally, I don't like wire mesh reinforcement- it never stays where it is needed, it gets stepped down. 1.5lb/Cy of micro fiber added to the mix is what I poured at my house.
    * Yes, expansion foam along the brick.
    * busted up concrete can be thrown in a pond (if you have one) for fish cover. Or...a trash company like construction waste or even some concrete suppliers have a concrete crushing operation where they sell the recycling material, you could properly dump it there for a fee.

    Also...cement is an ingredient in concrete. Like sugar is an ingredient in cake. Stop calling in cement! :xmad:
     

    HoughMade

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    Oct 24, 2012
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    Valparaiso
    I'm going to go a bit against the grain and say that, theoretically, I would do business with family IF...

    I knew the person's work and was impressed by their skill and professionalism AND had a good relationship with them knowing that they are a quality person. In this circumstance I could expect the person to hold themselves to a high standard because they value the relationship. I would expect to pay them what is fair, but the value added would be the extra care they would put in rather than less $$.

    I certainly wouldn't hire family if I have never been impressed with their work, work ethic or them in general. Further, I would never hire a family member to "help them out" during a hard time....because contractors who do what they do really well don't have "down" times (in the current economy).

    In other words, if I would not hire them if not related, I wouldn't hire them because they are related.
     

    Shadow01

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    Mar 8, 2011
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    WCIn
    Fiber reinforced concrete is an industry standard today for helping to mitigate cracks.

    Most people don't realize one simple fact
    There are two types of concrete.
    The type that has cracked, and the type that will crack.

    Concrete cracking is inevitable.
    The mitigation efforts prior to the pour are more important than rebar.
    If the site is not properly compacted your concrete will crack in months.
    Properly done it can last decades, but will eventually crack.
    Yep. We replaced 60 foot of walkway with fiber reinforced concrete in 96 and at the insistence of my mother there are no joints in that stretch because she hated when the snow shovel would hit the joint and stop. Not a single crack yet.
     
    Rating - 100%
    4   0   0
    Mar 9, 2022
    2,173
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    Bloomington
    I'm going to go a bit against the grain and say that, theoretically, I would do business with family IF...

    I knew the person's work and was impressed by their skill and professionalism AND had a good relationship with them knowing that they are a quality person. In this circumstance I could expect the person to hold themselves to a high standard because they value the relationship. I would expect to pay them what is fair, but the value added would be the extra care they would put in rather than less $$.

    I certainly wouldn't hire family if I have never been impressed with their work, work ethic or them in general. Further, I would never hire a family member to "help them out" during a hard time....because contractors who do what they do really well don't have "down" times (in the current economy).

    In other words, if I would not hire them if not related, I wouldn't hire them because they are related.
    I definitely agree with you on that one. I've done business with family a couple times in my life, but it was only with family I knew well, had never been estranged from, and had no misgivings about.

    I also always started out very first thing explaining that, while I trusted them, misunderstandings and disagreements related to money are the number one way to ruin a good family relationship, so I wanted to make sure everything we were doing was very clearly spelled out in writing ahead of time, and signed off by both parties. I've stuck firm to that rule, and have never had anyone get mad at me over it.

    So far it's worked well for me, but of course, YMMV.
     

    Indyhd

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    Jan 12, 2010
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    Noblesville
    Yep. We replaced 60 foot of walkway with fiber reinforced concrete in 96 and at the insistence of my mother there are no joints in that stretch because she hated when the snow shovel would hit the joint and stop. Not a single crack yet.
    Concrete normally shrinks 1/2" per 100 lineal feet.
    control joints in sidewalks are normally spaced at somewhere between 5-6' apart with expansion joint at about 30' apart. The control joints are just where you hope to have the concrete crack when it does. I've used Jagee's company off & on for testing over the years and he knows exactly what he is talking about.
     

    jagee

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    Jan 19, 2013
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    New Palestine
    Concrete normally shrinks 1/2" per 100 lineal feet.
    control joints in sidewalks are normally spaced at somewhere between 5-6' apart with expansion joint at about 30' apart. The control joints are just where you hope to have the concrete crack when it does. I've used Jagee's company off & on for testing over the years and he knows exactly what he is talking about.
    I don't work for a testing company anymore...on the contractor side of things now, but still in the quality department.
     

    wagyu52

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    Sep 4, 2011
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    South of cob corner
    Well, he has broken ties with us.

    Last week he made contact to see about getting paid for the work he had done. After some back and forth about the quality and quantity of work done he told us he wanted $2400 for work completed so far, all labor we covered all materials and float rental.

    His main argument was lack of quality help. His helper didn’t show so he enlisted my wife and I to help in his stead and we didn’t preform to the level of his expectations so he had to do double duty on the screed and float. He contended the only issue with his work was imperfections in the finish of the concrete. his plan was to skim coat with a thin layer and cover up any minor issues. Yeah….
    We talked it over and our big sticking point was his lack of admission that his work was sub par at best to down right terrible, had my doubts long before we poured and definitely after. Had he not blamed us I might have considered paying him.

    Told my wife the way I read him, Your relationship with him was going to cost $2400, anything less and you will most likely never see him agin. It was her brother and I wouldn’t fault her to keep the peace and pay but be aware paying was an admission that the work he did was acceptable.

    She decided to pay him $800, our out of pocket on the concrete was close to $1600 since we had to eat that he should eat the labor was our response. He sent her a text saying good by sis and promptly blocked her on his phone and Facebook.
     
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