Nastiest jobs I ever had was working Concrete.
Setting forms for concrete walls and footers for residential homes or Building Custom Gunite (That’s Cement mixed with sand as the aggregate) for In-Ground Pools, Nasty work all around.
When setting forms for walls we’d occasionally miss the footers we had poured by an inch or less. The pressure from an 8 foot tall six inch wide wall of freshly pour concrete on the “gap” would cause a “Blow Out”. Concrete rapidly flowing outside of where it’s supposed to be.
Someone would Yell “Blowout, Blowout” !!!!
They would halt the pour from the mixer and next you’d hear, “Bucket Brigade, Bucket Brigade” !!!
The closest guy would jump into the hole to stop the blowout with whatever he could use. I’ve seen guys lay out their bodies in an effort to stop the blowout. You never really know how big the blowout can be, so you have to do whatever it takes. Concrete is expensive.
At the same time, all the workers on the perimeter are scrambling to find and throw 5 gallon buckets into the hole. At this point you’d have 2 or 3 guys in the hole scooping up concrete in the buckets and lifting them up to another guy straddling an 8 foot high wall/forms and he’d dump it right back into the form.
At the end of the day, every day, you would be covered in used motor oil and concrete from head to toe. The oil is used to keep the concrete from sticking to the forms.
Oh, and all that is mixed with dirt.
I found a great appreciation for Lava Soap.
thanks great real life recounting....my father was a concrete contractor and I helped him on his jobs many times. That was enough to scare me off wanting to do that in the building trades.
thanks great real life recounting....my father was a concrete contractor and I helped him on his jobs many times. That was enough to scare me off wanting to do that in the building trades.
I did a few years doing aluminum pin & wedge basement forms and concrete. Hard work. Them forms were heavy 4 foot by 8 foot sections.