It never fails. Boss askes if I can pump a sat. job. I agree because I'm a greedy pig. Upon arrivial its always the same. A clueless homeowner with ICF walls he bought in town at the advice of a pimplely faced kid who works at home depot. Having never worked with concrete in his life, the kid tells him he can do his own walls and save money!! Why, he works at homedepot, that makes him an expert right! The first words out of the homeowners mouth are always, "The manufacturer recommends we use a double 90 on the end of the hose to slow down the concrete as it fallls, you got one right?" NO! i tell him, "dont carry one and never will." disapointed he responds "So you ever do these before? how do you think we should pour it?? It never fails 3 lifts in some arse hole wont listen and vibrates a wall after being advised that, "Thats not a good idea." A loud CRACK fills the yard and, glub, glub, glub out comes the mud. Am I the only one who gets this crap or am I blessed by a local phenonemon? These home improvement stores are making my life hell. Its getting so a guy has to actually earn his sat. overtime!!!!

hehehe,yeah sometimes.That's when you have to dig deep and remember your most likely the only professional out there.You wanted that extra buck,take the good with the bad.

We are service providers in a very tough market.Attitude can make or break a day.

Had one I remember very well.Homeowner was told he could anchor bolt into rail road ties and single side form a retaining wall.Yes it was a long day,but we made it work in the end.

i get that on the pea rock pumps all week , they say you know how to finish too right.

I am to the point where I don't even like to do DIY jobs anymore; they all turn into disasters! My favourite was when I showed up to a job with 10' walls approx 40 yards or so.  The homeowner and his wife were standing there, no vibrator, no power and no %#$@% clue about concrete.  I said I would help them as best I could; not much else to say since mud was 10 minutes behind me.

 Anyways, the job was a gong show; blowouts left and right.  There were cold joints because it was taking so long and we couldn't vibrate.  I ended up burning two other good customers, because a job that should have taken three hours took all day.  The worst part was the day after, when the customer told us he didn't want to pay the pump bill because his job turned out like crap.  He tried to blame me for the mess because I said "I would help him".  Moron had no clue about construction or responsibility.  How am I supposed to avoid a bad pour with no crew, no power and a remote box around my shoulders!!??

The moral of my story... If you don't know what you are doing, don't do it!

G Rock

No good deed goes un-punished.

hi guys first of all what a great site, I am a bricklayer and also have a 15m and 29m Squeese pumps in New Zealand I can simathise with you guys with the blow outs in blockwork we use no bigger than a 10mm grout for block fill through a 2" hose which can be a bit tricky with the 29,we  also use a Silka product called Cavex which is a expanding adjend so you don't need to vibrate walls, we do vibrate on our own work if it needs to be waterproof,         

and the double 90's work well for us when we do boxed footings and columns it stops the boxing blowing to bits!

Hi Alan

We run the pump in 5th gear and at idlle speed it works ok we can use a lower gear but it slows the hydro pump down to much 

to ingauge the pump ,(not sure how your new ones work) we select the gearbox gear and there is a handle like a hand brake the ingauges a transfer box or drive which runs the hydro pump 

G Rock I'm putting your story in my "stranger than fiction file".

A rainy,gloomy,chilly day here

lol, Thanks Many.  I couldn't make some of the stuff up!  Like the guy who thought I was the ready mix truck!  He was very surprised when I told him I couldn't go backwards down his driveway because the mixer needed to back up to me.  "What are you talking about?" he said, "Don't you have the concrete with you?"