EP #151: Most Concrete Durability Problems Start Here (Alkalinity Explained)

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And welcome to another episode of the Concrete Logic Podcast. And we have Bob Higgins back with us.

Bob's been in the concrete industry for decades. He's worked across the cement, chemistry, ad mixtures,

capability and performance. If you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, I'm sure you're right across concrete Bob's episodes. There's quite quite a few day.

He's joining us. We're going to talk about alkalinity, the pH environment inside concrete and the lever or levers that controls durability for concrete.

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Okay, Bob, we're back.

And just behind the scenes, this is take two. We lost internet. So we're back. We're going to try this again. Bob, just to get you warmed up on the on the subject to hand.

When we say alkalinity and concrete, what are we actually talking about?

The alkalinity is actually the concentration of assault. It's an alkaline salt. There's a lot of different salts that are out there. And I'm going to give a background on what salts do and how they affect moisture, not only moisture that's available to concrete for hydration, but just moisture in general, how it affects it.

And once people understand what they're dealing with, a lot of the mysterious problems are running across people figured out.

So is this the root cause of all the problems? And when we say problems, what kind of problems are we talking about?

It is one of the root causes because alkalinity, unfortunately, people get high pH and high alkalinity mixed together. And I keep reading study after studying. They keep doing that. So no wonder people are confused. They said, well, we have this. We have a lower pH concrete.

So what's a lower alkalinity concrete? The pH is the same. But if you notice when you read studies like that, they won't give you the pH.

Because it's the same, but they don't know why. So they just use the term pH. But the biggest issue that we have with alkaline salts is its ability to grab and hold on to moisture.

And that is really, really critical during the curing phase of concrete. So I'm going to just go back and just give some basics on salts.

All salts will reduce relative humidity, some more than others. And the ones that are consistent are the ones that are used as calibration salts, where they have basically four different salts that they use these little containers that are full of water.

Because no matter how much water is in there, if it's saturated, it will maintain a consistent relative humidity through a very broad range of temperatures.

Because temperature will also affect the alkalinity and the ability of these different salts to hang on to water.

And a lot of mistaken belief is the water wants to hang on to while it's chemically bound. Well, no, it's not because it can be taken on and released in normal everyday climate.

So that is not bound water. They keep mixing matching these terms to where even the experts get confused.

So I'm going to get into the most critical alkaline salts that are in concrete. You're two most critical alkaline salts in concrete are calcium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide.

I've heard people say potassium hydroxide, but that's kind of interchangeable with sodium hydroxide because their response to a moisture is almost identical.

There's very little separate them. So I'm just going to focus in on sodium hydroxide so it doesn't get overly complicated.

Because one of the things is when they started adding cement kiln dust to cement between 2002 and 2018, that didn't change the pH as much as it changed the alkalinity.

And that's where that kind of slid in under the radar. And that's when the problems that we're seeing because as the alkalinity increased, it also increased the setting of the cement.

And also it also made moisture less available to creation of cement. So I'm going to go into the background of salts. Again, all salts will reduce relative humidity.

Even if the moisture hasn't changed at all, it can remain the same. It's like sodium chloride, table salt.

Table salt is available anywhere. And one of the examples I give people is it can create a condition where it will take water and hang onto it. Even though it's not at due point, it can actually create condensation.

So that's called ionic condensation is due point. So that condensation can be captured and can cause issues in the concrete because now with it capturing the water, that's no longer available for the cement.

And the little tabletop example I gave is I'll take just table salt and I put it in a little container and it's dry and it's, you know, 70% relative humidity.

And I put a cap on it and I raise the humidity at 80% and even though it's not even close to 100% relative humidity, which normal atmospheric condensation will occur due point, it will begin to liquefy and turns into a liquid at 80% relative humidity.

So that water is now captured. That's not available to be measured because as you as you put something down on there, like a relative humidity probe or anything like that, it will measure 75% relative humidity according to some experts that supposedly dry.

Well, it could be saturated, but it's measuring dry because they misinterpreted what the salts do. Now here's where the.

I want to pause you.

So is the so the moisture is in the salt.

Yeah, it's captured to capture it in the salt. So it's holding on to the salt and that's why you're saying if you use a RH meter.

It's not capturing what's going on in the salt just what's going on in the air space.

Yeah, in the air space, right.

That's all this measures the air space.

So there can be a whole bunch of water in there and the RH will not see it. It can't see liquid water. None of them can.

Okay.

That's the latest capability. Now, when you have a lower RH that also equates to a slower evaporation rate.

So things like the calcium chloride test because it's fixed to 60 to 72 hours.

There's only so much moisture can capture in that kind of a climate versus an open system where it can readily capture moisture will give you an accurate reading, especially now with the system that can dust in there.

And now with the changes in concrete, that's no longer a viable way of measuring moisture content.

RH in calcium chloride are not viable. And here's why because there is one famous consultant said, well, the reason why calcium chloride isn't accurate is because it overdrives the concrete.

Well, that's nonsense because it has what's called a higher critical humidity threshold. The the alkaline salts have a higher excuse me.

The calcium chloride has a higher humidity threshold than either the alkaline salts.

The calcium chloride in these test devices, it will try to get the relative humidity down to 18%. That's its critical humidity threshold to 18%.

I'll start attracting water and we'll hold on to water 18%. So if the so if the so if the moisture is relative to me is higher in these air spaces is trying to get it back down to 18%.

That's how calcium chloride is used in closets. They put a bag of calcium chloride in a closet and it's trying to dry everything out. And that's why it keeps things from getting mildew.

There's no difference. That's exactly what it's doing. That's a passive effect. So when people hear what's vapor emission, they think it's water vapor freely coming out of the concrete. That's not true. All it's doing is trying to balance the environment within that lid.

It's pulling it's pulling the moisture from the air and it's collecting on the surface of the concrete because of the salt that's inside the concrete.

Exactly. And that's one of the cheap causes of the slab sweating syndrome when you get older concrete because older concrete tends to collect a lot of the salts at the surface.

So when the relative humidity gets around 75 or 80. It looks like somebody took a shower. The concrete sweat and dry it out. So that's a sign that your concrete has a high alkalinity.

Yeah, towards the surface. Correct.

Okay. And here's the thing calcium hydroxide, which is a byproduct of cement formation has a critical humidity threshold of 12%. It can get silking wet.

And will not release water to the calcium chloride until it hits past saturation point where it's it's it gets where has excess water, where it's enough to produce a relative humidity above 18%.

Then and only then will the calcium chloride begin to capture that. So that's what it measures and can't measure what is actually captured in the calcium hydroxide.

But it will capture anything is in excess that isn't captured within those within those ranges. What will happen you'll get a different reading because calcium hydroxide gets more soluble gets colder.

So grabs onto the water more readily, but as it warms up, it starts releasing the water because because it becomes insoluble.

So it starts losing the water.

So so as it so if you were in a calcium chloride test on the same exact concrete of its 80 degrees, you're going to get a different reading. Well, it's 60 degrees.

Well, there's no more or less water in there. It's just the ability of that salt under that condition to capture the water. That's where we're getting it to the sodium hydroxide. That's the bad guy.

That will start capturing water at 9% relative humidity. Even if it's desert dry, it can get wet and stay wet as it in really, really low humidity environments.

And that's what's in the concrete and that's what's interfering with the top surface of the concrete.

And it is my I'm absolutely positive. That's what's causing the self-destication that we're seeing now because there's not enough moisture available for the cement formation and the reason why that happens when this cement is initially initiated, it uses up some of the water.

Well, now that they've had limestone, all these other little particles in there to properly dampen those, those are actually competing against the clinker to form cement.

It wants water and wants to get wet. The clinker wants to get wet, but there's only so much water to go around.

So what happens when it starts the clinker absorbs some moisture and forms cement, it drops to the moisture level. When you drop the moisture level, that raises the alkalinity.

And when the alkalinity gets raised, it lowers relative humidity in the surface of the concrete because that's the most susceptible area.

So if you have, for example, if it gets 20%, the relative humidity in that area where the sodium hydroxide is 20% concentration, the relative humidity will drop to 78%.

Well, people said, well, that's no big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal because at 80% and under, cement formation stops. That water is no longer available to the cement.

If it's not available to the cement, you get a more porous permeable surface, and that's what we keep doing. So even if you put water on top, it will not allow the water to penetrate, because it's now in an equilibrium.

As it keeps going, as things keep going south, because what puzzled me at first when I saw some of these global studies, there's one in Portugal where it was showing that in the first two to three weeks after the concrete was placed on a roadway.

And also a bridge deck, the relative humidity was dropping between 15, 70% and they were trying to blend that on the cement hydration.

So there's not enough cement in there to create that kind of a condition.

It won't use up that much water to drop the humidity. So there's got to be something else.

So then when I started looking at calibration salts and everything that salts do, that gave the answer.

And if you look at where they have sodium hydroxide in bulk, where they ship at 40%, that's typical, 40% concentration in water, they have to keep it heated at 70 degrees, because here's another strange property.

Sodium hydroxide, as it gets concentrated, and here's the problem.

The state-of-the-art study on concrete in NIST in 1999 said that sodium hydroxide is an antifreeze, and they showed a truncated graphic.

It showed up to 20%, it would drop the freezing point of water to negative 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Well, that's true. However, it doesn't stay at that, as it gets concentrated from 20%, when it goes to 40% concentration, the freeze point of water is now 59 degrees Fahrenheit.

And as it goes towards 60%, the freeze point of that water in the concrete is now over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

It doesn't want to move, it's behaving like ice. It's not freely evaporating moisture.

So not only is the ice dropping, but the water now thinks it's freezing, and the water is now getting more viscous.

If you get a sodium hydroxide moisture combination, it gets up towards 60%, it's now got the viscosity of like a molasses.

It won't move, you can't dry it out. That will damage the concrete surface, because now it's dehydrated, but it looks wet.

It's wet, why is it cracking? Well, because that is not available to the cement.

So that's why the top surface of the concrete, in the first inch, is to self-desicate, and that will even happen in a laboratory,

when Texas Transportation Institute did the study, I believe it was back in 2005, where the water cured the concrete for seven days,

when it isolated the top one inch of the concrete, it was a full 20% lower and compressive value than the remainder of the concrete.

That shows there's a lack of strength gain, and the lack of strength gain means the cement is not properly hydrated.

But we're being told that's okay, that's always been an assumption, and that assumption began way back in the day when they had a course of grind of cement.

So we've not modernized our techniques to study the concrete properly, because now the concrete has changed dramatically since 2002 to the present day,

where we don't have a track record of any particular concrete or cement mixed design that makes any sense, because the type one is what everything was based on,

but as they started grinding it finer, concrete began to crack and warp and curl, so they started adding type two, and the reasoning for it was a mix of more sulfate resistant.

Yeah, that does, but that's kind of like hiding something out in the open. It's my opinion, that's the excuse they gave, not the reason.

So where are all the salts coming from?

That occurs naturally in the aggregate in the concrete, and it's also coming from the cement now with the cement kiln dust,

because cement kiln dust, and unfortunately I didn't screenshot it, but there was one recorded example where the alkalinity was 400% higher with the cement kiln dust than it was in the concrete without the cement without the kiln dust.

So it's pretty dramatic.

So with that concentration of alkalinity coupled with the initial hydration of cement, now it makes sense why the concrete is self-desicating towards the surface.

Now it doesn't do that in the center of the concrete, but it does that in the top surface, and that's where it's receiving all the damage.

So why is that?

That's because you got evaporation, and it's exposed to radiant heat and the environment, because there's a lot of contributing factors, which I'm not going to get into,

because it gets, that's a real deep die, but with evaporation alone and exposure sunlight or even light, there's an acceleration of evaporation.

So the acceleration of evaporation, even with a water cure, it's not cooling the concrete properly.

And here's the other contributing factor is when the concrete heats up, even with water on it, the heats up, the calcium hydroxide loses solubility.

Because it's one of the few alkaline salts that gets more soluble as it gets colder, and becomes less soluble as it gets warmer.

The sodium hydroxide on the other side loves to get warm, loves elevated temperature, but then it starts to start capturing that water, making it unavailable for the cement.

And the cement kiln that does, that's causing the high alkalinity, that was because of the EPA restrictions on the, right?

That was a requirement, yeah.

So it's not releasing the, that dust anymore, and that's dropping down into the cement, is that right?

Well, basically with a more alkaline cement, it gets to that point very quickly.

The cement hydration isn't as complete as it used to be.

So we've got a really a cascade effect on what's causing the damage and the surface of the concrete.

It's temperature, along with the insiability of the calcium hydroxide, and the increased concentration of sodium hydroxide.

That's why alkalinity is so important here.

Now, they keep mixing up high pH with high alkalinity.

High pH is, is a concentration, is not concentration, but it's the strength of a salt.

Now, sodium hydroxide is, the other curve that gives us is that it has, it's really buffered.

If you can have a difference of 20%, I mean, 20 times higher alkalinity and virtually won't change with the pH strip.

Or any other pH device for that matter.

So I experimented with this on a case I was brought in, where a suspicion there was an alkaline salt, sodium alkaline salt in the concrete.

And where it was severely damaged, I did what I call a relative alkalinity test.

So I did the normal pH test, but what it is, I put a ring of plumbers putty down, a half a milliliter of water, of dionized water.

They put the pH strip in.

And the area of no damage, a moderate damage, a severe damage, all measured around 11, but the severe damage is around 12.

So I added more water to the area that wasn't damaged, as I added water to it, quickly dropped down the pH of 9.

The moderately damaged area, when I added the additional water to it, another half a milliliter of water, the pH didn't change.

Then I did it again. It started to lower. I did it again.

Between five and six times of adding water, finally went down to nine, because that's basically concrete when it's neutral.

When it's fully carbonated, it should be around nine.

But the severely damaged ones, there were areas I added where the started overflow and it couldn't add anymore.

And the pH is still a little bit. Well, that's alkaline.

The other one is a high pH, but it is an alkaline.

The alkalinity and the damage corresponded with each other very, very closely.

But just plain concrete, it will dry it out and will crack it. It will cause warping.

Because it responds now more to heat than it did if it stays wet.

Because if it stays wet, at least it's swollen, but it won't stay wet. It captures that.

So we keep going around and around this technical hamster wheel, where people keep doing the same thing over and over again.

And what really is annoying to me is that I read these labs to us. It is assumed that then they come to a conclusion.

You can't come to a conclusion if you're making assumptions.

Because what if any of those assumptions are incorrect? What's most of them are?

Well, your conclusion is wrong. Most concrete studies are not correct.

At least 90% of the ones I've read and I'm being generous here are incorrect.

Yeah. So what's the sign of a high alkalinity, the sign of what happens to the concrete itself?

Other than that draw the salts draw the moisture from the air and you can see it on the surface of the concrete.

What are other things that is a telltale sign?

Well, I'm going to step into a land mine here, but here we go.

A good example is any precast concrete because they heat cure the concrete.

Now the center portion of the precast is really, really dense and durable because what water does it wants to move from warm to cold.

So as you're heating up the skin of the concrete and heating up the concrete is pushing towards the cold center.

But the poor skin of the concrete is now dehydrating.

Now the way you can look at it is I've taken just plain standardized concrete poured in place and I've taken precast side by side.

I'll put water on the standardized concrete. It'll absorb a little bit, but it takes a while.

But if I put on the precast, it disappears.

Put some more on the precast disappears. Put some more on the precast disappears.

I've typically seen five time radar initial absorption with precast side with standard concrete.

That's because they heated it up, the calcium hydroxide and the cement formation got retarded.

So when I looked at the study conducted by ACI with all these different inputs from the 1940s through around 2005.

It showed that the higher the temperature, the better the compressive value was at 28 days.

But the weaker the concrete was at 365 days.

That correlated with what we're seeing with alkalinity.

Because if you add everything you'll see on the only thing that makes sense is alkalinity.

At 120 degrees, they were showing that the concrete at 28 days had 200%

of its targeted 28 day strength.

But then when they put it in a chamber of 73 degrees, 100% relative humidity for the remainder of the full year.

When they got to 365 days, the concrete was 73% weaker than the targeted value.

Yeah, that's compressive strength, right?

Yeah.

Which we've preached on this show many times that shouldn't be your measure of durable concrete.

So what you're saying is the precast concrete has a more porous surface than a cast in place.

More permeable.

There's a permeable.

Permeable.

Yeah.

Permeable.

I see I'm using the wrong term permeable.

And the labs do that too.

I'm so glad I'm going to jump in here.

I'm so glad you brought that out because I saw a professor giving a presentation where he showed this curve for the water,

the water, cement ratio, and reciprocal curve for what he was saying is permeability.

Why didn't I embarrass him so I waited till after the class was over.

I said, what you're actually showing is a porosity curve, not permeability.

He thought they were the same thing.

I said, no, porosity is absence of mass permeability.

This is the ability to absorb something like a gas or a liquid.

What I use is a dash top.

I'll get this vitrified pumice stone, which really pours, looks like a big sponge.

You pour water on it, but it's somewhat hydrophobic so the water sits on it.

Doesn't want to penetrate.

Then I'll take a salty tile where there's no apparent porosity at all.

You pour water and disappears.

That's permeability.

That's porosity.

That's permeability.

There's a difference.

And they keep mixing the two up.

So they mix porosity and permeability, alkaline, IPH.

We keep mixing these terms when we keep mixing these terms.

They'll wonder people are confused.

Yeah.

So this is good.

So porosity versus permeability, which you define the difference is porosity.

Absence of mass.

Yeah.

Is that worse or same?

Or if there's difference in permeability.

If you were like, if I have to have concrete that has high porosity, I'm struggling just saying that.

Or high permeability, which one do you...

Are you following what I'm asking?

Yeah.

I would prefer the high porosity unless it's an area where there's water pressure.

Then water will push in and get much greater volume.

But under normal circumstances like a roadway surface, a bridge structure or floor,

you do not want a permeable surface.

Because it absorbs water and it transports things in and out of the concrete.

Okay.

Water's fine as long as it doesn't move.

If you could keep concrete under water permanently.

For example, if you take a 3,000 psi concrete, leave it under water and test it 50 years later,

it'll probably be up around 12 to 13,000 psi.

But if you put, move it to the tide line and you look at piers, where's all the damage?

At the tide line where the water goes in and out.

The more movement and moisture you have and the more allowable moisture over time,

that will damage the concrete.

So porosity and permeability are both bad news.

We can produce concrete that doesn't have either.

But we're not being allowed to because all we have to do is hit the compressive value standard.

That doesn't tell you anything.

Because I better not say it was a military base and went to the military base and they had this roadway.

I'm like, God, look how durable that is.

Well, they couldn't use it.

The reason being, you know, they had all these shredded tires and everything else in there.

And they said, well, it didn't match our minimum.

It didn't mean a minimum compressive value.

Yeah, but the roadway is holding up.

The other ones are falling apart.

But we don't have a choice or hands are tied.

Seriously.

So they could see, they could see it.

Like, actually see it.

There's two roadway that had hit the compressive strength that was specified.

And then the one that didn't was actually performing better.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, if they weren't allowed to use it, how did they know that the one that hit the compressive strength

was doing better than the other?

The other one was just falling apart and the other one was...

Well, everything around it was falling apart.

They didn't explain it in the past section.

But it didn't meet the minimum compressive value, so they rejected it.

But there it is holding up year after year.

That pavement was about 20 years old when I saw it.

The roadways around it, there were less than five years old that had extensive damage.

From free saw.

That met that met compressive strength.

Yes.

And exceeded compressive values.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I'm trying to piece this together.

So high alkalinity can cause high permeability.

And high porosity.

And we'll do both.

Yeah.

Because the cement formation doesn't occur.

So what replaces it?

Water.

Because the alkaline is captured at water.

And it's sitting there in place.

And if you do a cross section where this has happened, it's really obvious.

Because you see the first inch that's full of these little holes and pores.

And it gradually dissipates as it gets deeper into the concrete.

Right?

Yeah.

Now, if it was properly cured and we controlled the water, such as with like with an entire curing,

it should be the same all the way through.

Because the goal is if the water gets in, we're going to have problems.

If the water doesn't get into the surface, we can get rid of the problems.

It is really that simple.

But we're not being allowed to do that because the only requirement is how much load will this bear?

Right.

Well, they're put.

I mean, couldn't you just solve the problem by putting a sealer on it?

No.

Why is that?

Because the sealers will wear out.

And also they don't have, for the most part, they actually can create more problems

because with the free porosity and permeability of the concrete, you can get an alkaline buildup behind them.

That salt's come in and the salts have considerable hydraulic pressure.

For example, if you have an afternoon guide or like a potassium sulfate or something like that,

if it goes through what dry cycles, it'll just break the concrete underneath the sealer.

The sealer is a real strong sealer.

If it's a water repellent, you may end up getting what's called self-wrestling damage.

And so those never work in the long run because they always wear out because they're organic in nature.

Concrete should not be treated with an organic material, as she remains completely inorganic.

But again, they don't think outside the box.

They look at, well, look at that.

They're protected, well, after the time being, but at what cost?

Because if you look at ASR for floors, ASR can get triggered by the application of an epoxy resin,

whereas if you left it alone, the ASR wouldn't trigger.

Because the ASR needs alkaline and moisture and a medium, which is your amorphous aggregate, to create ASR.

But if you don't trap the water in there, there's generally not enough trigger of the reaction,

unless it's like a polished surface.

Can you remind everyone what ASR is?

It's alkalicylic reaction.

It's actually alkalite aggregate reaction because there's other aggregates that can react as well.

They're now seen, apparently, seen enough, ticket A, CR, alkalite carbon reaction with the limestone.

So we're jumping in the new territory and creating some more problems.

Gotcha.

All right.

So I think we define alkalinity.

Do you want to talk about how to prevent high alkalinity today, or is that not something we can talk about in a short amount of time?

No, that would probably take a series to do that, because these are regional,

and I have offered to the different cement producers.

Look, I'll sign an NDA, but let me know what kind of alkaline you have.

And also, the other wild card in this, because we don't know what it's doing, are the cement grinding aids.

We don't know what happens to those when they're exposed to high alkalinity,

because it still needs to compress about you.

And these grinding aids are a mean basic glycol base.

Now, they're not supposed to migrate, but they do.

Because that information got out in its one study, and they've been scrambling around trying to cover up,

saying, oh no, that didn't really happen. That was something else.

No, these things migrate.

Oh, the moisture migrates to the surface of the concrete because of the heat.

Well, no, it doesn't work that way.

If it's migrating towards the surface, that means it's containing a chemical that's activated by heat,

that's not the water moving, that's something else that's moving.

Because they say, well, the moisture is moving through.

I said, no, it's not. That's called diffusion.

So if something's dirty, and there's a place that's clean,

it's going to go from dirty to clean, that's the way it works.

It's really that simple.

So when the salts get more active, when they're warm,

and what's to move towards the warm side, and it brings the water with it,

it's not the water bringing that, it's bringing the water with it.

So it's kind of a dual whammy here.

And again, it is not being studied.

And if it's not being studied, we're not going to figure out how to fix it.

And I keep asking these laboratories,

would you please start looking at alcohol in it?

And they're not doing it.

That will fix so many issues if we start addressing that.

If we can consume alcohol in it, but here's the other one too.

Is there, wait, is it, you think they're not doing it?

Because there's no money in it?

I think, I think what, I honestly don't know.

Some of, I believe, is intentional.

And some of it, I believe, is just because this is the way they've always done it.

Right.

Because I was, I was caught in that trap for a long time.

And then when I realized almost everything I learned about concrete was wrong,

at first I was upset.

Then I got intrigued.

Then I realized, why was part of the problem too?

Because I was telling everybody the same bullshit that everybody else was.

Right. That's not the way it is.

The real world, this is what happens.

Because we're dealing with, we're dealing with kinetics here.

We're dealing with influences that you can't capture in a laboratory.

And it's like, I was helping this one company where I was doing some consulting for.

They literally had a waterproof concrete.

Water did not move through it.

It had no connecting capillaries.

But it was being flunked by the architects because the RH was too high.

I said, the RH has nothing to do with water volume.

Because they said, what do you mean it has nothing to do with water volume?

I said, if you take a cubic meter of space and you want to fill it up with water,

it takes a little bit of 264 gallons of water to fill it.

But if you wanted to get to 100% relative humidity,

you need less than two ounces of water.

So don't tell me this 100% relative humidity is a big deal because it's not,

because no indication is to water volume.

But they couldn't do that.

So what I did is I took my knowledge of salts.

And I had them add a salt, a very inert salt,

to their concrete mixed design.

And we were able to engineer it to hit between 80 and 85%,

which is what the architect wanted.

The water content was exactly the same.

We just add a little bit of salt to it.

I mean, how stupid is that?

We have to modify the concrete to make a standard that doesn't make any sense.

But that's because everybody told you it does make sense.

The humanities really deadly and all of that, blah, blah, blah.

I said, OK, then explain this to me.

The National Association of Home Buyers in the United States

have stated there's over 148 million residences in the United States.

Over 70 million of those are built up over slab on gray.

And the slab on gray will try to reach equilibrium.

And they're making that the big scary issue with RAs.

Once it goes to equilibrium after you put the floor down,

oh, disaster is going to happen.

Oh, really?

Then there should be some correlation.

There should be like 50, 60 million failures.

There's a few thousand, but not millions.

There's a few thousand.

And so that means it's something else.

So we're being again, we're being curded into this fence area

where of non-science, I call it nonsense non-science,

that doesn't make any sense.

But everybody's trapped there because they're afraid to ask questions

because they don't want to look stupid.

Well, I've never been afraid of looking stupid.

I've done that all my entire life.

And I will ask you this.

I do it multiple times a day.

All right.

Well, I think we defined alkalinity.

And yeah, we'll bring you back.

I know we got a lot to talk about.

Is there something that you have coming up that you want to plug?

I know you just did a talk a couple of weeks ago with the moisture mob.

Is there anything else coming up?

Well, I'd like to do a follow-up on this.

And the four different common properties of water.

Because everybody's familiar with waters of vapor,

waters of liquid, waters of solid.

But there's two more forms of water that are in concrete

that are not being addressed.

That will tie in with what we just covered here with alkalinity.

And once that time is given,

people understand why moisture moves away it does.

And once you understand why moisture moves away it does,

now you've got the tools to start to controlling it.

That's why I didn't want to take a dive into that area

because that needs its own coverage.

It's own perfect.

All right.

We'll do another episode on that.

That's perfect.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Bob, for coming on the show today.

Well, thank you for having me.

Yes, sir.

It's always a pleasure.

And folks, until next time, let's keep it concrete.

Thanks for joining us for another episode

of the Concrete Logic Podcast.

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And now to close out the show, here's Mike Dunton.

We're out here changing these skylines with wood.

Iron and mud.

We work hard for a color give thanks to the Lord above.

And I'm like a man new, something you can't prove.

Hard work calls for a drink or two.

Expect more.

It's ridding in our blood with wood.

Iron and mud.

From the swan's to the city, from the long star,

he to the woods of the Georgia Pine.

Beautiful falls and girls, you ain't afraid to get dirty for a clean cup.

And if you want to see the fire and the romance eyes,

you need the hot summer sun.

A wild-eyed boys caught the days and nights,

working hard to get that job done with wood.

Iron and mud.

We work hard for a dollar give thanks to the Lord above.

The color of the colors ain't white or blue.

We're all gray colored through and through.

Expect more.

It's ridding in our blood with wood.

Iron and mud.

We work hard for a dollar give thanks to the Lord above.

And if you want to see the fire and the romance eyes,

you need the hot summer sun.

A wild-eyed boys caught the days and nights,

working hard to get that job done with wood.

And if you want to see the fire and the romance eyes,

you need the hot summer sun.

A wild-eyed boys caught the days and nights,

working hard for a dollar give thanks to the Lord above.

And if you want to see the fire and the romance eyes,

you need the hot summer sun.

A wild-eyed boys caught the days and nights,

working hard for a dollar give thanks to the Lord above.

With wood.

Iron and mud.

With wood.

Iron and mud.