Two symbolic developments this past month spotlight heavy building materials’ wide-ranging contributions: to urbanization across the world as well as the portfolio of an operator in the business for the long haul.
Read MoreMicrosoft founder ties concrete to a halving of world’s extreme poverty rate
Sources: CP staff; Bill Gates’ gatesnotes blog
In “Have You Hugged a Concrete Pillar Today?,” Microsoft founder Bill Gates takes stock of Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization, the latest work from his favorite author: “[Vaclav Smil] argues that the most important man-made material is concrete, both in terms of the amount we produce each year and the total mass we’ve laid down.”
Read MoreEconomist links construction materials’ upward pricing to harsh winter
Source: Associated Builders & Contractors, Washington, D.C.
Through April, concrete products and iron & steel prices were up 3.4 percent and 3.2 percent year over year, while overall construction materials prices rose 1.5 percent against the first four months of 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s mid-May Producer Price Index.
Read MoreCRSI recommends return to inch-pound markings
Source: Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute, Schaumburg, Ill.
At a meeting on November 9, the CRSI Board of Directors urged all producer members to revert to an inch-pound bar marking system for all sizes and grades of deformed reinforcing steel products. CRSI members produce more than 90 percent of domestic reinforcing steel.
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