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Hi All,

We laid our ground floor roof around mid of 1st week of November. Most of the roof/beam have come out good. But there are few places in beams mostly where they have done electrical piping, there are honeycombs. Also, Second half of the chain staircase has not come out good at all (second half was laid along with the roof). I am posting the pictures below. I would like to understand how bad they are and if it needs any special treatment. They were planning to close it with cement - I have asked them not to touch until I ask to.

Please let me know.

Few more pics -

Hi,

As far as I can see in the pictures (even after zooming), I could not make out many issues with the staircase. For beams, I could notice some honey combs. Especially the rods are not exposed. Mostly this happens if they have not kept the cover blocks for beams or stair case. In your case they seem to be fine.

If you have used pin vibrator in the concreting of beams and stair case, I don't think there is a cause for concern here.
If you have not used vibrator, please insist on using them for all concrete works including columns, beans, stairs and slabs. I would even advise you to buy one for yourself, if you are building more than 3 slabs. The cost of rent would be compensated, if you sell it at about half price after your building use.

Use of vibrator can not stressed enough in concrete works, as it removes the minute air voids in concrete and increases the strength manifold.

The reason why these honey combs come is that the masons have a tendency to increase the water quantity in the concrete mix, which pulls out the cement slurry when a vibrator is kept. That is why they tend to remove the vibrator in a hurry. Ideally you need to maintain the water-cement ratio by using chemical called plasticizer. This will give the desired workability for the concrete even while maintaining the water cement ratio at desired levels. Other wise, they tend to get the workability by adding more water than desired to the concrete mix. We need to educate the masons about this. Tell them that they should not mix more water so that it becomes easy for them to 'pour' the concrete.

I would say that you need to make sure that your concrete should have a consistency that makes it resemble a thick curd. Given the freedom, they (masons) may as well make the concrete watery like butter milk! May be a little exaggeration here!!

Thanks
Venky