Switched from hand troweling to power trowel for small garage slabs

For years I did all my finishing by hand, even on 400 square foot garage floors. Last summer I finally borrowed a buddy's power trowel for a job in Phoenix and it cut my finishing time down from 6 hours to maybe 2 and a half. The finish came out way more even too, no more random high spots or trowel marks. Wish I'd made the switch a decade ago, honestly. Anyone else fight the urge to stick with old methods and regret it later?

2 comments

2 Comments

alicea261mo agoMost Upvoted

So you're saying it cut your time by more than half and gave you a better finish, what's the catch? I've been thinking about picking one up for my smaller jobs but I worry about the learning curve on something like that. Did you have any trouble getting the hang of it or was it pretty intuitive right from the start?

park.tara1mo ago

Oh man, I'm gonna push back on this a little... I actually tried one of those and ended up returning it. The learning curve was way steeper than I expected, and I spent more time fighting with the settings than actually working. The finish was "better" but it took me like three tries to get even close to what I could do by hand on the first go. Plus the cleanup was a nightmare compared to just wiping down a simple tool... I don't know, maybe I'm just old school but I'd rather stick with what I know for small jobs.