Old school hand float vs power trowel for small residential slabs

I did a 20x30 patio last month in Austin where I used a hand float instead of my power trowel. Everyone at my shop said I was crazy but the finish came out way smoother with zero burn marks. The power trowel kept grabbing the mix even at low speed and left those little swirl patterns I hate. Hand floating took me about 45 extra minutes but the customer texted me a pic later saying it looked like glass. Has anyone else found that power trowels are overkill on jobs under 500 square feet?

4 comments

4 Comments

jordan_henderson1312d agoMost Upvoted

Man that mix sounds way too wet if it was grabbing like that.

val_shah12d ago

Gotta push back a little on that @jordan_henderson13. This was a 3.5 sack mix from a reputable plant, slump was dead on 4 inches, and I checked it myself. It grabbed because the slab was starting to set fast in the sun and the pan was picking up the cream, not because the mix was soupy. A wet mix would have left a soupy slurry on the surface, not ripped the pan down to aggregate. I been doing this long enough to know the difference between a wet mix and one that's just setting up quicker than you expected.

tessaperry9d ago

Val shah the cream pulling off like that tells me your mix was fine but your timing was off. Power trowels need the concrete to be a lot harder than you think before you put a pan on it. If you're running a pan while the surface still has any moisture bleed it'll grab and tear every time. Hand floats let you work earlier and with less risk cause you feel the surface direct. Next time try waiting an extra 30-45 minutes after the hand float stage before you even think about the power trowel. Let it set up enough so the pan glides instead of catches.

val_shah12d ago

@jordan_henderson13 must be running a super wet mix on all his jobs then cause mine was textbook perfect and still grabbed like crazy. Maybe some power trowels just hate small slabs or maybe I need to buy the expensive blades instead of the cheap ones at Home Depot. Either way hand floating that patio felt like cheating at the end cause the surface came out dead flat and the customer couldn't stop talking about it. Power trowels are basically overpriced pizza cutters for anything under 500 square feet if you ask me.