There are many activities involved in our construction projects. Out of these, one of the very important activity is manual Mixing. The manual mixing will be done in construction projects in following areas,
- Mortar mixing
- Concrete mixing
- Waterproofing materials mixing
- Painting materials mixing
- Other construction chemical
Following are top 3 reasons why manual Mixing is considered as critical and requires highest supervision possible,
1. Material Selection:
Proper selection of materials is highly significant to achieve a good Mix. For example in Cement Mortar for Plastering, following aspects are very important.
- Suitable Cement – High grade or Fast setting cements are not required for plastering
- Suitable sand – Well graded fine sand is most suitable for plastering. Coarse sand or sand with high silt content is not suitable for plastering
- Potable Water
- Admixture if required
In material selection stage if enough supervision is not ensured chances of wrong materials getting mixed are high; and finding the mistake after the mixing or at the time of application is very difficult.
2. Right quantities of ingredients:
Every mix will have varying ratios. For example in concrete there are many ratios available like – 1:4:8, 1:3:6, 1:2:4 – Cement : Fine Aggregate : Coarse Aggregate
If the ratio is not ensured at the time of mixing, chances of concrete not achieving required strength is high.
So Supervision plays a major role in selecting right quantity of ingredients to achieve proper Mix.
Another example for right quantity is in construction chemicals. There were lot of problems happened if these chemicals are not properly proportioned. Say if the plasticizer is mixed in excess quantity hardening concrete delays for many hours, which in turn causes curing issues, cracks, delay in progress.
3. Achieving Homogeneous Mix:
Once the Right materials are chosen and right quantities are made available, next step is proper mixing process which ensured homogeneous mix.
If the mixing process not ensured properly, the ingredients will not be equality distributed which causes workability issues and lowers the strength.
Conclusion:
Mixing is one of the critical activities in construction. So Supervision has to be ensured at all the times of mixing process to get right materials are selected in right quantities and mixed well to achieve high quality Mix.
