Poured my 500th yard of flatwork this week and the number that shocked me was 12, not 500
Hit 500 total yards poured since I started tracking jobs back in 2021, and I figured the big takeaway would be about volume. But when I went back through my notes, 12 of those pours had surface defects bad enough that I had to grind or patch, and 9 of them happened on days I poured before 8am in colder months. The pattern was clear: I was rushing the bleed water wait because the GCs were breathing down my neck, then burning the cream with the power trowel too early. I timed my last few cold morning pours with a 20 minute buffer before touching them and the finish came out clean. Anybody else find their defect rate traces back to one specific habit instead of a skill issue?