c/construction-tech

A GC's comment about my slab sensor data made me redo everything

Last month a general contractor on a mixed-use job in Austin said my concrete sensors were useless because I was logging ambient temp instead of core temp. Swapped to embedded probes with a 15-minute interval and the early cure readings are way more accurate now. Anyone else get burned by taking the easy reading route on pours?

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tessa_kim3•5d ago

Job site visit: a 3D scanner beat the crew's tape measures in 40 minutes

Went to a framing site in Austin last Tuesday and watched a guy run a LiDAR scanner through a half-built townhouse. The crew had spent two hours measuring walls for prefab panels. He scanned the whole unit in 40 minutes and the model matched within a quarter inch on all 14 check points. One of the foremen said, "that thing just made my measuring team obsolete," and honestly, he wasn't wrong. We still need hands for layout, but the data collection part is done way faster. Has anyone else seen a scanner replace manual measuring on an active site, or is this still rare?

c/construction-tech

A GC's comment about my slab sensor data made me redo everything

Job site visit: a 3D scanner beat the crew's tape measures in 40 minutes

A GC in Austin made me stop trusting my tape measure for floor flatness

Can we talk about drone mapping software pricing?

BIM coordination meeting in Austin made me question the whole point of laser scanning

That fancy job site laser layout tool I bought was a total waste of $400

My laser level saga that took 3 days to figure out

Stumbled on a trick for keeping my laser level accurate on rough walls

Just realized my laser level was off by a quarter inch on a 40-foot wall

My GC buddy called out my paper estimating habit

Spent a whole afternoon trying to scan a building with my drone

Swapped out my paper blueprints for a tablet on site, no more soggy drawings

Showerthought: The old foreman who taught me how to read a grade rod in 2010 still had his original 1987 binder of hand-drawn site plans.

Talked with an older mason last week who said he uses a 3D laser scanner for layout now

Bought a cheap infrared camera for ductwork inspections and it paid for itself in one job

TIL laser measuring tools are actually worth the money, I was dead wrong about them being a gimmick

Switched to a laser level for my last framing job and it cut my time by 40%

Stumbled on a trick for drilling through rebar with a standard bit

Blew $400 on a laser level that couldn't handle direct sunlight

Was totally skeptical about drone surveys until I tried them

That foreman who showed me a busted laser level saved my bacon last Tuesday

Last week my 3D printer melted its own wiring right in the middle of a job site demo

Our drone mapping went haywire on a 12-acre site

Switched from paper plans to a tablet on site and ate my words

Watched a crew bust out a site layout in 2 hours with a robotic total station that used to take me a full day with a tape measure