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Learning about: Concrete + Fog
Nov. 7th, 2014 10:51 pmTonight I learned a bit about concrete. The neighbor two houses down is having a really charming brick path laid about her front yard, but this evening her property smells horrible! They just poured a stretch of concrete sidewalk today, and apparently it is full of nasty fumes, and the foggy weather makes the air stagnant, so I guess we may be stuck with it for a while.
So anyway, wondering what is going on, I looked online to find out if there’s something special about pouring concrete in cooler weather. Up to this point, I had never noticed concrete having any particular smell at all, other than a sort of dusty, neutral, sunshine smell, but maybe that’s because I’ve only been around fresh concrete in the summer, a sensible time of year to use it?
It turns out that calcium chloride is often added to concrete made in cooler weather, which lets it set more quickly (for example, two hours instead of six). Is that odor chlorine? Could be. Maybe they used too much? I turned off the heat pump in the hope that it won’t infiltrate my house too much overnight.
So anyway, wondering what is going on, I looked online to find out if there’s something special about pouring concrete in cooler weather. Up to this point, I had never noticed concrete having any particular smell at all, other than a sort of dusty, neutral, sunshine smell, but maybe that’s because I’ve only been around fresh concrete in the summer, a sensible time of year to use it?
It turns out that calcium chloride is often added to concrete made in cooler weather, which lets it set more quickly (for example, two hours instead of six). Is that odor chlorine? Could be. Maybe they used too much? I turned off the heat pump in the hope that it won’t infiltrate my house too much overnight.