Excavation complete - Are leaves a problem?

[going88mph]

Hello,

My 24x30 foundation/slab has recently been excavated for a monolithic pour. Concrete is set to arrive in two days. With fall here, and a wooded lot, a lot of leaves have accumulated in the footing/slab area. Is this a problem? Should I break out the leafblower before the truck arrives?

thanks!

 

[Jackfre]

No deleterious material. It won't hurt the concrete. It will draw bugs. How do you want to begin

 

[MoonRise]

Yeah, break out the leafblower before pouring the concrete.

You want the concrete to be on top of the clean gravel, which is on top of the 'clean' ground.

No (or minimal) organic material left in place to rot or decompose or cause eventual voids or hollows or so forth.

Worst case with sloppy/agressive concrete pouring/placement is that all that crud gets slopped into the wet concrete and then stains the concrete ('best' case of this possible 'worst' case) or you end up with glopped wet concrete-coated leaves all over the surface of your concrete slab or glopped into the slab itself (would like like **** and be a mess to smoth the slab surface if that happens).

Blow the leaves out of the way before the pour, keep them out of the wet concrete (no glopped leaves added to the concrete mix, leaves are not a 'proper' concrete additive )and off of the wet concrete (stains), and keep them off of the 'drying' (actually "curing") concrete unless you really don't care about stains on the slab.

 

[Cryptic1911]

get them out of there.. I wouldn't want a big clump of leaves to rot away and leave a hole under the slab somewhere

 

[going88mph]

Do you build a tent over the site then? How do you stop leaves from falling???

 

[Flatland Dave]

Pour in the spring.

 

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Pour in the spring.

Or cut down all of the trees....

 

[PT Doc]

Cover with plastic after blowing leaves out seems like a logical plan.

 

[Zeke]

^^^This. You can't have mud in there either. Get a shop vac out there. Blow what you can and pick it up out from beneath the rebar with a vac.

 

[Spudland_Dave]

Or cut down all of the trees....

Thats my style...

The basement floor in our house was poured in the early fall...Luckily I finished most of the basement so you cant see it, but there are quite a few areas where leaves were finished into the concrete surface...nothing which is a structural problem but I've got Oak & Maple Leaf "Fossil Imprints" in my concrete now.
I joked with my concrete guy when we did the garage...told him I'd pay him $500 extra to not float a leaf into my floor...Said he HATES Fall pours for that reason...virtually impossible on windy days.

 

[nosnerd]

buy a tarp at hardware store and stake to ground once cleaned...about 50 bucks

 

[truckone176]

Yes, get the leaves out of there before you pour. Last year my neighbor had their house leveled and stabilized with the in-ground anchors and the engineer that came out and surveyed the site said that the leaves were part of the problem. The house is a walkout on a slight slope and the leaves decompose and become a "grease" between the concrete and the substrate. His house was literally sliding down the slope thanks to the decomposed leaves.

 

[going88mph]

Welp i got out the leafblower/vac and cleaned as well as i could. Slab is poured now. Will make sure it gets covered after they finish smoothing it out. Thanks.