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Mortar mix went bad halfway through a retaining wall job in Austin last spring
I was about 40 rows into a 60-row retaining wall when the mortar started setting up in the wheelbarrow in like 5 minutes flat, turned out the bag of Portland I grabbed from the back of the truck had gotten damp from a rainstorm the night before, and I had to chip out half the wall and start over - has anyone else had a batch go wonky on them like that?
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karen_sanchez1016d agoMost Upvoted
Read somewhere that heat and humidity can mess with your mix time way more than people realize. Like the chemical reaction speeds up when it's hot out, so your working time shrinks down to nothing if you're not careful. Sounds like that damp bag plus the Austin spring weather just cooked the mortar before you could even use it. Sucked having to chip all that out but at least you caught it before the whole wall went bad.
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