Concrete and Masonry Editing and Proofreading Services

A pour goes in on a Thursday afternoon. Six weeks later a cube result comes back low, and the question is what was actually placed in that bay — which mix, at what slump, in what weather, cured how, and struck when. If the pour card says "C32/40, 45m³, OK", then nobody knows, and the answer will be found by coring a floor that is already loaded.

We edit what concrete and masonry contractors produce — pour records and concrete placement documentation, mix design submittals and conformity documentation, curing and formwork striking procedures and criteria, cube and testing regimes and their reporting, cold and hot weather concreting procedures, reinforcement inspection records, method statements for placement and finishing, surface finish specifications and sample panel documentation, masonry and mortar specifications, movement joint and tolerance documentation, and remedial proposals when results fall short. Our editors work on the record that has to answer a question six weeks later.

The pour record is the only contemporaneous evidence of how concrete was placed, and it fails by recording the outcome rather than the conditions. We work through these so every pour is identified by the element and its location in terms somebody can find on a drawing, not by a bay number that means nothing outside the site; so the mix is recorded by its designation and the delivery ticket numbers, since the ticket carries the batch time and a load discharged ninety minutes after batching is a different material; so the ambient and concrete temperatures are recorded at the start and end, because these determine everything about strength gain and are the first thing asked about a low result; so the workability test results are logged with the time taken, and any water added on site is recorded as added water rather than omitted; so the curing method and its duration is stated as what was actually done, given that a procedure requiring seven days of covering and a card saying "cured as spec" prove nothing; so the striking decision names the criterion used — a strength result, a maturity figure, or elapsed time — and who authorised it; and so anything unusual is written down at the time, including the shower at four o'clock. Records written this way settle the question without a core.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including mix designs, test results and site records. We are editors rather than concrete technologists or structural engineers, and we offer no view on mixes, strengths, curing or acceptance. What we can do is make the record answer the question that eventually gets asked.