I worked residential construction for a while (still do, on and off). I remember once job we had to gut an entire house. I mean the ENTIRE house. The only thing left was the exterior concrete block walls, the roof, some of the ceiling joists, and the rafters. Not even a floor. Literally, stripped it down to the dirt underneath the house (found a SWEET old Diamond adjustable wrench down there). We had to pour a bunch of footings... I got the job of carrying in an entire forklift pallet of 80 pound bags of concrete, then got the job of carrying all of the water from the neighbors property in 5 gallon buckets, THEN get to mix and pour all of the concrete. It was just me and my boss on the job - I was the helper... This house also had all of its doors and windows and there was no breeze most of the time, so even with the windows open it was crazy dusty... I was wearing a respirator, carrying 160 pound of concrete at a time.... SUCKED! Anyway... that was the job that I learned how bad concrete will mess your boots up. I was meticulous with keeping my boots nice... I mean, I would oil them at least once a week, keep them clean, etc. After a few days of that concrete, my boots started to crack. I had them for probably 2 years without them cracking, I took notice and made sure to clean concrete off ASAP and oil them right after and haven't had a problem since.