The truck pulls up right on time. A pallet of block is sitting in the only path to the forms. The driver waits 20 minutes while the crew finds a forklift and moves it, and the concrete keeps setting in the drum the whole time. Nobody planned for the pallet because nobody walked the route. Preparing a site for premixed concrete delivery mostly means walking that route the day before, from the street to the forms and back out, with the truck in mind.
Walking In From the Street
A loaded mixer weighs close to 70,000 pounds and is about 8.5 feet wide. The path from the curb to the discharge point needs firm, compacted ground and room to back up or turn. Fresh backfill beside a footing trench can collapse under a rear axle. Look up as well as down. Overhead power lines and tree limbs need clearance from the chute and the truck’s raised parts. Then mark the discharge point. With extensions, a chute reaches about 12 to 16 feet off the back of the truck. Forms beyond that need a line pump, a boom pump, a conveyor or wheelbarrows, and the choice decides where the truck parks.
Standing at the Forms
By the time the first truck is due, the forms should be braced and checked and the rebar inspected and signed off. Screeds, floats, vibrators and curing materials should be staged close to the pour, and the whole crew should be on site. Weather belongs in this check too. Wind and heat dry a fresh slab quickly, and rain can wash paste off the surface, so curing compound, plastic sheets and a sunshade or windbreak should be within reach. One person on site talks with the driver and with dispatch. That person tracks how many yards have been placed, calls to tighten or stretch the truck spacing, approves any water added at the site and signs the tickets.
Walking Back Out
After each load, the driver rinses the chute. That rinse water is high in pH and full of cement fines. Most stormwater permits in California require a lined washout pit or a portable washout bin, and it works best placed along the exit route so trucks can use it on the way out without blocking the next one coming in.
Contractors new to ordering can find more first-time tips from Rush Concrete, which delivers ready mix across Southern California.
