Winter is Concrete Season

…in Your Landscape

by Mike Dooley

Concrete season is here. You didn’t know that there is a concrete season? Well officially there isn’t, but there should be. One of the oddities of the landscape business is that consumers miss out on some of the best times to get their project done. When it comes to hardscape, winter is really great for a couple of reasons.

First is price. Let’s say you are a concrete/masonry contractor and it is spring. Why would you give any sort of discount when you are already overwhelmed with high-paying jobs? Let’s take the same guy in winter. He’s sitting home eating ramen noodles and watching “Oprah.” You can get a great deal if you’ll have the work done in the “off season.”

The second reason to consider winter hardscape installations is that if you want to do your project in stages, then doing the flatwork in the winter leaves spring or the next fall to plant.

I know what you’re thinking. Can we really pour concrete in freezing weather? The short answer is YES!

According to the book “Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures,” “Specially designed accelerating admixtures allow concrete to be placed at temperatures down to 20 degrees.” I know it gets colder than that, but it says “placed” and if it is below 20 F in the daytime then the contractor is home watching “Oprah” anyway.

This concrete book I’ve quoted is one of the resource guides used as an instruction manual for the GB98 test. The GB98 is the test to be a general contractor in the state of New Mexico.

Happy Gardening!

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