Just read that the Hoover Dam used enough concrete to build a two lane road from San Francisco to New York

I was looking up some old construction facts online the other night, and that one hit me. I mean, we pour driveways and slabs all day, but that's a whole different scale. It said they used about 3.25 million cubic yards of the stuff. Can you even picture that many trucks? I was trying to think about the heat of hydration on a pour that big, and my brain just stopped. It makes our biggest commercial pour look like a sidewalk patch. Where do you even start with the mix design and the joints on something that massive? Has anyone else come across a concrete fact that just made your head spin like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

nora_walker572d ago

Trying to picture that many trucks just makes my back hurt. My biggest concrete headache last week was a cracked patio slab for a rental. The scale of that dam pour is just a different world. Reading that, I feel like I've been playing in a sandbox my whole career.

david5622d ago

Reminds me of the time I saw them pouring the foundation for a new library downtown. They had a pump truck with that long, snaking arm just going for hours. I stood there watching, thinking about how my entire garage project would fit in one corner of that form. It's all just mud and rock, but the size changes everything.

mila_brown102d agoTop Commenter

Watching those big pours always makes me wonder how they keep it all level, @david562. My uncle did a small slab once and spent days fixing the slope.