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Hello All,

We started construction of our house about 2 months back.
Everything was going so well until today morning when we opened Column boxes above plinth level.

Yesterday our mastry took two major jobs on a single day,
1. 40mm jelly PCC work on flooring and Parking area. - 1st half
2. Column boxes fixing upto 7 feet and filling concrete. - 2nd Half

Today morning we opened the pillar boxes.. We found terrible conditions of pillars as shown in below pictures.. amlost all the pillars (12 nos) are of same condition.
Mastry is suggesting to just fill up with cement/concrete in the gaps. For which i am totally against..

Need suggestions from Experienced and Experts in this area.. Thanks in advance..

Which location is this?

Site is located near K R puram

This due to bleeding and excess vibration of concrete try to remove loose aggregate by chisel till sound concrete . Apply sbr bonding agent of forsac and refill the same with rich concrete .

Really feel sorry about the way the pillars have come out.

Would suggest you bring in a structural engineer and determine the correct way forward.

You are correct in resisting the easy-fix of filling the gaps in pillar using concrete.

Thanks for the concern and suggestion.
I have asked structural engineer, Contractor and Mastry to be available tomorrow at site.
Together need to decide on next action. Hoping for best decision.

Has anyone come across such failures on columns. Randomly checked with few guys around for root cause..
Some say,
> Cement is the problem - Ramco 53 is not good.. / cement is duplicate / expired
> Water mixing ratio is less
> Water mixing ratio is more
> Cement mixing ratio
> Vibrator is not used properly
> Oil is not applied on the inner surface of column boxes

I am totally clue less on the cause, as I was absent during concrete filling for columns.
This is a lesson for me too.. need ensure self presence during concrete work. I am very much disappointed with contractor who does come rarely to supervise.

Thanks,
Praveen

I am no expert, but looks like the concrete mix has been way off. Water mixing should have been less and Compacting has not been done.

Don't blame yourself for not being there. Unless one knows about the technicalities involved in the civil construction, it is very difficult to correct these things during the concrete pouring. Have seen similar issues in another forum members construction pictures. Might be worthwhile to search and check what happened there. If i can find the link, will post it here.

What a shabby work: I see the problem with mason and contractor. In order save few hundereds, one has done the thing very badly.
The mason/contractod did not use vibrator, removed the shutter plates very quickly. Hand mix was done without proper supervision.

-Venky

I have seen bad workers but not as bad as this so if possible its better to change the contractor as the construction is till in the initial stages as you dont have to keep fixing his mistakes in the future.I am not sure what you did about this bad construction but better to quickly break the concrete and relay it again before it becomes hard.

Hi,Praveen
First thing there is nothing to panic in these cases .To be clear its a mason blunder mistake ,he just didn't pack the concrete properly ( vibrator is not generally used for column but they keep raming it with iron rod while they pour concrete layer by layer )
You really dont need to listen to all the crappy stories of contractor in this case since it has not happened in one column but all ,it shows mere negligence of him in not monitoring his mason work .

Now the simple remedy for this is to use micro concreting after using bonding chemical like JULT said ,once it is done make sure you test personally asking them to chisel it after a week days to test the strength of the packing area .Now who bares all this cost and delays is all part of contractors mistake.
They need to pack it either with pressure machine (not available for smaller works )or forced plastering where in the mason splash the micro concrete with his spatula and fills the gap hard enough that the gaps are filled with micro concrete .

If the concrete mix is too loose then we should have seen lumps of concrete slurry formations below the columns ,which is missing as per your pics.If contractor says they cleaned it already ask him to maintain the same cleanliness across the site not just below the column

Regards
Ar.Praveen.N
Ardes architects and Interior Designers
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