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Hot take: I thought those new polymer mortar mixes were just a gimmick for lazy work.
I got a sample of a brand called FlexSet from a rep at a trade show in Boise last year and figured it was junk. Then we had a job with a tricky, moving retaining wall in a wet area, and the old foreman swore by it. We used it, and after a full season of freeze and thaw, that wall hasn't budged a millimeter. Has anyone else had to eat their words on a new material that actually worked?
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taylorellis9d ago
Hold on, does anyone have real data on that long term creep for these mixes in the field, or is it just a lab worry? I've seen the spec sheets but they never show a twenty year timeline.
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martinez.kim9d ago
Remember that the real test isn't just the freeze-thaw, it's the long-term creep under constant load. A lot of these polymer mixes have great early strength, but I worry about them slowly stretching over years when they're holding back a ton of dirt. That wall might be solid now, but the clock is ticking differently than with regular mortar.
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