PRODUCERS – January 2015

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Two months after entering the Texas market for volumetric mixer-delivered concrete through a deal for Custom-Crete, U.S. Concrete Inc. subsidiary Redi-Mix LLC bolted on the fleet and sites of Scofield Construction Services, LLC and Mobile-Crete of South Texas, LLC. Operated collectively as Mobile-Crete, assets acquired include five volumetric ready-mixed concrete facilities and 47 mixers servicing Austin, San Antonio, and south Texas markets. They join Custom-Crete’s 60 volumetric mixers and 11 plants Redi-Mix took over in October, netting site-mixed production in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas/Ft. Worth.

 
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Test suits slabs set for floor coverings

A proposed ASTM International standard, WK47030, Practice for Evaluating Concrete Floor Systems to Receive Resilient Flooring, follows World Floor Covering Association and Floor Covering Installation Contractors Association endorsement of dryness testing and slab evaluation by third parties. Once approved, WK47030 can be specified in construction documents or contacts as a way to require such oversight.

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Standard models slab mixes’ drying behavior

Newly published ASTM C1792, Test Method for Measurement of Mass Loss Versus Time for One-Dimensional Drying of Saturated Concretes will enable engineers and producers to characterize how hardened mixtures dry. “The information can be used to directly assess the drying rates of a given concrete mixture,” says ASTM member Dale Bentz, chemical engineer for the Materials and Structural Systems Division in the National Institute for Standards and Technology Engineering Laboratory. “[It] could be valuable for industrial flooring applications, for example, where quick drying is often desirable.”

 
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Cloud collaboration, cost justification enter international code development

Leading to the 2018 International Building Code and International Residential Code, the 2015/2016/2017 Code Development Cycle will be the first full interval to use cdpACCESS, the International Code Council’s cloud-based system for code change proposals and public comment submittals, floor modification submissions and online voting.

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Green Building Standard factors projects’ life cycle carbon, construction equipment idling-rooted diesel emissions

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New requirements to further reduce energy and environmental impacts in buildings’ construction and operating phases—site vehicle idle time thresholds and stormwater management guidelines among them—are detailed in the 2014 version of the green building standard from ASHRAE, the U.S. Green Building Council, and Illuminating Engineering Society.

 
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