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The pre-pour check: what to confirm and record before concrete arrives

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

The pump is set up, the finishers are on the deck and the first truck is due at 7:00. At 6:40 an electrician is still tying conduit into the slab, and the floor-drain sleeve sits on a pallet. Someone says the engineer saw the rebar yesterday, but nobody can find a record of it.

Looking down into a tied column reinforcing cage with plastic cover spacers fixed to the bars before the pour.
Photo: Vijesh Kolodi on Unsplash

A pour is the cover-up that is hardest to reverse, and it runs on a clock: once trucks are dispatched, the pressure is to place whatever is in the forms. What must be confirmed comes from the project's own drawings, specifications, engineer's requirements and permit, not from memory or the last job. Even a public owner's deck-placement checklist reminds its users that it does not override the specifications.

Confirm, record, then release

  1. Build the pre-pour list from the documents a few days ahead, each item with its reference, including the reviews the engineer and the permit require.
  2. Collect every trade's embeds — sleeves, conduits, anchors, drains, blockouts — each confirmed against the drawings by its trade.
  3. Book the required reviews and the testing agency early, and record when each was requested.
  4. Walk the pour area with the foremen the day before, marking each item pass, fail or not applicable, with a photo of every fail.
  5. Record each review: who, when, what was reviewed, any conditions, and the written statement where one is issued.
  6. Hold the concrete order until every fail is corrected and re-checked and every review is recorded, and name who releases the pour.

Common mistakes

  • Confirming the concrete order before the list is clear.
  • Taking cover, spacing or tolerance numbers from memory or another job.
  • Accepting "the engineer saw it" without a name, a time or a record.
  • Remembering other trades' embeds only once the pump is running.

Action list

Before the first truck

  1. Open the pre-pour list with its references
  2. Confirm every trade's embeds are in and checked
  3. Record each review: who, when, result, conditions
  4. Photograph every fail and its correction
  5. Hold the concrete order until the list is clear
  6. Write down who released the pour, and when

Check your understanding

It is 6:45, the trucks are dispatched and one sleeve is still missing. What do you do?

Show the answer
Hold the pour until the sleeve is set and checked, or until the engineer or designer accepts an alternative in writing, and record the decision. A held truck costs time and money; coring a finished slab costs more and may need its own engineering review.

Sources

  1. O. Reg. 213/91: Construction Projects, section 89 (formwork and falsework inspected before the placement of concrete)Government of Ontario (e-Laws) · Ontario, Canada · accessed
  2. 29 CFR 1926.703, Requirements for cast-in-place concrete, paragraph (b)(3)Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (U.S. National Archives) · United States (OSHA construction standard) · accessed
  3. Bridge Deck Concrete Placement Checklist (revised 6/2014)Minnesota Department of Transportation · Minnesota, United States (a public owner's checklist, shown as an example) · accessed

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