Spent 6 hours chasing a blister that was just a bad mix

I had a driveway job last Tuesday in Phoenix where the surface kept blistering on me no matter what I did. I kept thinking it was the weather or the timing of my trowel passes. After scraping back three sections and remixing twice, I finally figured out the aggregate I grabbed from the back of the truck was way too fine. The whole sand to cement ratio was off by a solid scoop. That stupid mistake ate up my whole afternoon and I had to reorder materials for the next day. Anyone else ever fight a finish problem for hours only to find out it was something dumb in the mix?

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spencerm463mo ago

Did you try swapping out the sand for a coarser one mid-job?

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piper9123mo ago

Three bags into a pool filter swap last summer, I actually tried that, @spencerm46. Ended up with a lovely sand-water slurry that clogged everything twice as fast. Figured I'd save ten minutes, cost myself two hours of backflushing. Lesson learned or whatever, but sometimes the short cut is just the long way with extra steps.

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