Asserting its relatively new precast business, Canada's Burnco Rock Products Ltd. recently opened the doors to a 60,000-sq.-ft. production facility on a 20-acre site just west of Edmonton, Alberta. The new facility was constructed using 40-ft.-high, 9-in.-thick insulated precast/prestressed walls manufactured at Burnco's Calgary plant. Serving the northern Alberta market, the Edmonton plant marks the first new precast operation of its kind to open in western Canada in 20 years and the only plant in the country fabricating Spancrete hollowcore precast panels.

Founded in 1912, Burnco is a fourth-generation, family-owned company supplying all areas of Alberta with aggregates, ready mix and asphalt in addition to precast components. In 1998, the company acquired the then 23-year-old precast producer Key Concrete Ltd. and integrated it into the Concrete Products division of Burnco. “We had one plant already in the southern Alberta market, in the major center of Calgary,” says Robert Heemskerk, vice president of the Concrete Division. “Since more than half of the company's sales are in northern Alberta, we decided to open up a plant in Edmonton.”

Commissioned in May, the state-of-the-art, fully automated and expandable facility features three production bays: the first is for commercial architectural precast, light structural, and the more recently added Spancrete, producing 8-ft. hollowcore flooring and 8-ft. insulated wall panels, with maximum span of 65 ft. “In the same bay as the Spancrete, we have a prestressed insulated panel bed that makes 10-ft. insulated wall panel and up to 10-ft. architectural panels,” adds Heemskerk.

The second bay is where Burnco produces its numerous standard (or inventory) products, including those shipped to the residential market: precast utility vaults, tanks, steps, decks, parking curbs, road dividers, sound barrier fencing and street light bases.

The third production bay is the paving stone operation, with a Fleming Eagle plant producing stone, retaining wall blocks, exposed aggregate products, stepping stones and various precast products for the do-it-yourself and commercial markets.

“The entire operation, obviously, was constructed new, designed to manufacture these products using the most modern methods available,” says Heemskerk. “On the commercial side, we have automatic stressing carts to pull the stressing strands. We have concrete distribution buckets that run down the architectural precast bed. We have various automatic finishing machines to do the 10-ft. product, and right beside that, we have the Spancrete products, which is an automated system as well.”

Everything for the standard products is produced on two vibrating tables. “Rather than bringing the concrete to the molds, which is typical in a lot of standard product businesses,” explains Heemskerk, “we bring the molds to the pouring station. The vibrating tables are fed by a Haarup batch plant, which is serviced with a traveling bucket system, also from Haarup, that goes right through the middle of it.

“The system is fed with one 3-meter mixer, which supplies the wet cast operation, and one 2-meter mixer, which primarily supplies the dry cast. The traveling bucket goes to six holding hoppers throughout the plant. Mixes are done through call boxes, where plant personnel simply call in material and the program automatically sends their mix to the holding hopper. For example, if someone punches in that they're producing a utility vault and they need 10 yds., the mixer will send out that amount. As the hopper gets empty, the system sends them a new batch. Similarly, if they're on the prestress line, which has a higher priority, the system makes sure that line gets its mixes first.”

In the commercial bay, Burnco has a 280-ft. self-stressing 10-ft. bed for the architectural and 10-ft. wall panel. There is also a 280-ft., 8-ft. stressing bed for the Spancrete hollowcore. The company maintains upwards of 60 molds for the standard product operation, all manufactured by small local mold builders throughout Alberta.

When Burnco got the approval for the Edmonton project back in the fall of 2002, the company spent the entire winter going through the design and engineering process. “We had a few months of site work, which took us into the summer, and we broke ground in July 2003,” says Heemskerk. “It seems like it took a long time to build this facility, but you have to consider that we were actually building three distinct operations and then combining them. We're a unique precaster in that we make so many different products for the residential and the commercial markets. On top of that, the land we purchased was raw, like where farmers had worked. So there was a fair amount of prep work to do breaking ground on 20 acres of land.

“We're only servicing a population of maybe 3 million-plus, and we're into everything. We can make an exposed aggregate paving stone, and a 2,220-piece architectural project to ship to Seattle, and an exposed stepping stone for Mrs. Jones' backyard.”

Since many Burnco customers are general contractors and engineering groups in northern Alberta, transportation costs were keeping the company from being competitive there with only a production facility in Calgary. “Some of the products — including precast insulated wall panels, light structural and certainly architectural precast — are cost prohibitive to ship, especially if you have local competitors, as we did in the Edmonton market,” he explains. “To be an equal player, we felt that we had to be in both centers.”

The Spancrete machinery was installed in late July and early August 2004, after the May opening of the facility. “We always had designed the plant with producing hollowcore in mind, but we had no time frame for when that would occur. But, with steel prices rising rapidly, there was suddenly more demand for the product,” says Heemskerk. “We were seeing a lot of projects that we supply wall panels for start to request hollowcore for the entire job. Before our grand opening, we had already started working with the Spancrete people. The actual purchase agreement was signed the day of the opening.

“Hollowcore hasn't really been in this market in a big way for many years. Just recently, a couple of our competitors have fired up their equipment, and one bought a new system recently. So, we've started to make the market aware. Of course, the demand for the product is what inspired us to speed up our plans. This isn't something we just put in and built a market around. That doesn't usually work too well.”