Mixer Drivers

no matter how well you wash down the drum you cant get it all out and then you get a little more buildup after every load

 

That makes sense.

I wonder if filling the drum with water and letting it sit overnight (in non-freezing climates) would help soften some of the buildup. After all, "water ruins concrete."

 

Im a ex mixer man myself. Concrete most of the time from a ready mix plant. If not running mixer, I was feeding plant with a CAT 936 4 wheeled front end loader rock and sand. Sometimes I was a water tanker when they fill it with water to clean up a fresh job.

Arkansas has many oppertunity here in the Ozarks to make your Mack mixer go into places most trucks cannot. And do things that have to be doing. Like assaulting a 50 degree slope sprinkled with shale rocks and stones empty. I said degree not percentage. There isnt any percentage that high in count.

Ive also run fly ash and bulk cement to many plants in my life time. It's easy work mindless as long that material is moving along out of the tanker.

 

concrete gets to a point that no matter how much water you put in it that its still going to get hard

 

The Romans used to make concrete that worked under the ocean.

Thus concrete.

 

Because there is still build up if you don't wash down the fins well. Some drivers don't do a good job, sometimes you have a hot load that goes off and starts setting.

 

The price for not maintaining the drum interior is to lock out the entire truck, disabled it in several ways then get inside with a 20 pound air driven hammer. Viberate and pick at the concrete, then shovel it out. It is a confined space in there in the 130 degree arkansas heat. I was relatively young and able to do that. I wont be doing that again, three days and 40 hours of jack hammering did some damage.

 

It's dangerous crappy work. My old employer tried getting me to go in the drum and do it. Some other guy had completely trashed the truck. I declined that invitation. I know there have been a good number of deaths from large pieces of concrete falling in there.

 

i wasn't required to go in the drum per the union contract
I seen what hammering inside the drum did to the crew we had. hands messed up from running the jack hammer, hearing damaged even when wearing protection, body messed up from climbing inside and dodging concrete chunks inside