How do you keep cement bags dry in a Somaliland store?

Cement goes hard when it takes in moisture, from rain, from damp ground or from humid air. A dry, raised, ventilated store with a strict first-in-first-out rule keeps bags usable through the Gu and Deyr rains and the long dry spells between them.

What makes a cement store dry enough?

A store is dry enough when the floor stays above ground moisture, the roof does not leak, and air can move through without rain blowing in. The building itself does most of the work; bags and pallets only buy time.

Cement is a hydraulic powder. It reacts with water, and it will also pull moisture from humid air, so a sealed bag is not a sealed container. That is why a bag left on a concrete floor or against an outside wall can set hard even under a good roof.

The local check: stand in the store during the heaviest rain you expect and look for damp patches on the floor, streaks on the walls and bags touching the structure. Raise the store floor above the surrounding ground, check that rainwater drains away from the door rather than toward it, and ask the supplier how the bags were kept before delivery. A bag that was already damp when it left the truck cannot be saved by your store.

How should bags be stacked and rotated?

Stack bags on timber pallets or a raised platform, clear of the floor and walls, no more than about ten bags high in general practice, and use the oldest stock first. Confirm the stack height with your engineer or supplier, because bag weight and store conditions change the safe limit.

A tall stack crushes the bags at the bottom and presses them together, so moisture moves between them. A stack touching a wall takes damp from the wall. Bags placed flat and slightly overlapped shed water better than bags standing on end.

Keep the stack small enough to rotate. Write the delivery date on the store wall or on a card at the front of the stack, and always take bags from the front. If an old batch sits at the back, it will be the batch that goes into a slab.

Check every bag as it is opened. Lumps that do not break under finger pressure mean the bag has taken up moisture. Do not break them up and mix them in. Set the bag aside and record it in the site diary.

What record should you keep for each delivery?

Record the supplier, delivery date, batch or bag marking, quantity and store position for every delivery, and note any bag found hard at opening. This record is what lets you show which stock went into which pour.

The delivery note is the starting point. Photograph it and copy the details into the site diary the same day. If the supplier does not mark bags with a batch, write down the delivery date and the truck or supplier name instead. Ask for the mill's date on the bag where it is printed.

When you plan a pour, work out the bags needed with the concrete calculator and order close to that figure rather than holding a large reserve through the rains. Match the cement quantity to the aggregate and sand you will actually use, which the construction material calculator sets out alongside blocks and steel.

Keep the delivery notes in the same file as your other material checks, alongside the records described in How do you keep sand and aggregate clean on a Somaliland site?. The materials section holds the wider set of checks for a Somaliland store.

What to do next

Walk into your cement store today with a torch and a notebook. Check the floor for damp, lift one bag at the bottom of the stack, and write down the delivery date of the oldest stock you find. Then order pallets and set a fixed rule that bags come off the front of the stack only.