Building with Beach Sand


Concrete Grout; Cost Cutting 101
–or–
It’s a Government Contract, They’ll Be to Stupid to Notice!

I don’t purport to be a concrete expert, but anyone could see that the grout that was poured into the cores of our foundation would never set (harden) in order to obtain the strength required by the Borough’s plans. After all, it was basically 90% sand! Following my discovery of the very sandy, never setting grout in half the cores of our initial block work, along came the Borough inspector. He failed this same work in his initial inspection of the foundation walls. But not for the improperly constituted grout that would never set, but simply noting that the crooked builder had not followed the plans. Plans that called for all cores to be filled solid with grout. So after three weeks of delays, expert examination and more finger pointing, it was finally agreed — the grout would never harden and that they would need to jury-rig our foundation to continue, rather than going back and making right.

All frauds, like the wall daubed with untempered mortar… always tend to the decay of what they are devised to support

Richard Whately
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Author: Murphy