Find Answers to Your Queries at Nucrush Group

Australian Standards suggest concrete should be utilised within 90 minutes of leaving the concrete plant.

Concrete is strong in compression (squashing) and weak in tension (stretching). Introducing steel (reinforcement) in concrete improves the strength of concrete in tension. In a slab-on-ground, reinforcement increases the tensile strength and helps control the width of shrinkage cracks. If soil conditions are known to be poor, e.g., expansive clay soils, consult a structural engineer.

Bar chairs are placed underneath your sheets of reo mesh to ‘sit the sheets of mesh’ up off the slab floor. With most residential slabs being 100mm deep, the most popular size of bar chairs is 50/65 mm. When poured, the concrete binds around the mesh for maximum tensility and strength.

Concrete is a mixture of sand, soils, aggregates (i.e., rock or stone), water and cement. Concrete trucks deliver the concrete already pre-mixed to your site. Prepare your slab and await the truck.

Yes. Saturday is an extremely popular day for individual homeowners to pour concrete.

Most concreters recommend laying crusher dust under the slab to smooth out the surface and provide a fill that allows the concrete to stabilise consistently. Once again, ring the plant for a price on this delivery to your slab.

Concrete hardens due to hydration, the chemical reaction between cement and water. Hydration occurs only if water is available, and the concrete temperature stays within a suitable range. After placing concrete, the surface needs to be kept moist for some time to permit hydration.

The curing period for concrete is approximately 28 days after placing conventional concrete. New concrete can be wet with soaking hessian and sprinklers, covered with damp hessian or plastic sheets, or watered with commercially available curing compounds that seal in moisture. Add only small amounts of water where possible. Request the plant add a ’winter mix’ to your delivery during winter, ensuring the concrete will harden faster in wet and cold conditions.

Yes! We have a vast selection of colours to choose from. Request to look at our colour range, and the plant will mix your concrete to that colour on the day before delivery.

Many homeowners request exposed aggregate as they can see the rock or stones within the finish of the concrete, providing an ascetically more appealing finish on driveways or paths where there is exposure to the public. Whilst slightly more expensive than standard concrete, it is a popular finish. We can supply this exposed aggregate finish around your pool, driveway or home as and when required.

Like all other materials, concrete will slightly change in volume when it dries out. This volume change brings tensile stresses to the concrete, which causes it to crack, which is why contractors put joints in concrete pavements and slabs to allow the concrete to crack in a neat, straight line at the joint, allowing it to move when the volume of the concrete change due to shrinkage. The prevailing weather conditions may also contribute to cracking, with the risk most likely on warm days, dry days with low humidity and windy days.

Prepare the site correctly, including where control joints will be. Ensure correct placement of steel reinforcement. Ensure that formwork is level, firm and fixed correctly in place. Place the concrete carefully and ensure thorough compaction of the concrete during placing. Avoid executing major concreting projects on hot days with low humidity or windy days. Start early; avoid concreting in the middle of the day if necessary. Ensure the work is adequately prepared because there will be less time to place, compact, finish and cure concrete in these weather conditions.

Mudflats crack when they dry out in the sun as the soil stretches and expands in the heat, as does your concrete slab. Finishing the concrete correctly from initial screening to final finish by properly positioning and constructing control joints will enable the concrete to cure adequately.

Concrete surface dusting is typically caused by finishing the concrete surface too early while bleed water still rises to the surface. Thus, working on bleeding water back into the concrete weakens the concrete surface resulting in a dusting of the hardened concrete. Generally, repairing dusting floors is relatively easy. If the problem is not severe, the surface can be fixed by applying a chemical surface hardener. In extreme cases, it may be necessary to grind the floor to remove the weak surface layer and apply a bonded topping.

When the surface of your concrete continues dusting and scuffing after laying, a concrete sealing product can be purchased. Once applied, the sealing product returns your slab to a dust-free state.

Oil and grease stains can be difficult to remove because they penetrate the concrete surface rapidly. If an oil spill occurs, stop it from spreading by encircling it with sand, dirt, or sawdust. Soak up as much surface oil or grease as possible with an absorbent cloth or powder. Cover the residue stain with a poultice made of 1 part lime and two parts mineral turpentine. Spread a 5mm layer of the paste over the stained area, ensuring a 50 to 100mm margin around the edges. Cover with plastic sheeting and leave for 24 hours. Remove the cover and scrape off the powder. It may be necessary to repeat this process within a day or so. Scrub with warm water and detergent, then rinse with clean water at the end of the treatment.

Waffle Pods is where the concrete sits on (and around) a series of boxes (or pods) set out in a grid pattern. Think of a waffle pod as a raft lying flat above your soil. The advantage of your waffle pod slab is that it lies above the surface, unlike traditional foundations dug into the earth. The conventional slab can crack and move within the soil as heat, humidity and wet weather cause the earth to expand and contract. Conversely, the waffle pod slab sits above the ground and is less susceptible to changing weather conditions and its effect on the soil below.

Remove topsoil and level the site

Lay subfloor pipes, electrical conduits etc.

Lay crushed rock (i.e., about 2mm in diameter and about 19mm deep)

Put up formwork and line with sheets of that black bui8lders plastic

Place waffle pods in place with about 100mm gaps between them. They are clipped together, so nothing can go wrong here

Place reinforcement bars in gaps between waffle pods. The clips have a specially made groove to sit the reinforcement in.

Place the mesh on ‘bar chairs’ over the entire area

Fill the area with concrete

There are minimal earthworks required as there are no trenches to dig.

In the middle of winter, any trenches quickly fill with water, and it can take months before the concrete can be poured.

Waffle Pods bring the house further out of the ground. In an area that is we, the higher, the better.