For the past few years, some concrete companies have been promoting self-leveling concrete as the answer to all your pouring problems.
I was invited to view this product at the LaFarge plant in Ottawa today and it left more questions than answers.
What this concrete is supposed to do is lower manpower costs by allowing 1 man to pour several hundred cubic meters of concrete by himself.
You could pour a floor in your basement by yourself by simply backing up the truck to your basement window and pouring in the soup like concrete onto a raised chute inside the basement that could be moved around to do 10 by 10 ft areas at a time and letting it settle and level by itself and then with a float on a pole finish it in about 5 minutes.
Anybody use this product before?
Gabe
Replies
I like the concept a lot. In bag form, it's about 3x more money, though.
You have to make your form hold water, which is tricky.
They use the same foam cans that you use to seal windows and such to seal the bottoms of the form and any visible gaps or holes. Takes a little more prep time but saves on the heavy grunt work.
Gabe
Did you get pricing?
I think the retail will be about $150.00 Canadian for a meter. I'm going to be getting commercial pricing soon.
Gabe
What's the makeup of the concrete? Is there a new super-plasticizer that they are adding?
Can you achieve the normal compressive ratings of conventional concrete?
Definetely an interesting concept.
Jon Blakemore
What's the makeup of the concrete? Is there a new super-plasticizer that they are adding?
Definitely a super flow mix. It runs so fast it looks like water coming down the chute.
Can you achieve the normal compressive ratings of conventional concrete?
The stuff that they were using for the demo was about 40 mpa. We use 25 to 32 mpa for most commercial applications.
I want to see the spec sheets and a lot of testing before I would use it on a pour.
Gabe
Here's the article in today's paper about the demo yesterday.
Lafarge brings 'self-levelling'concrete to Canada
Thursday, May 26, 2005
A "self-levelling" concrete that's new to North America will revolutionize the construction industry, its maker says, by eliminating many hours of back-breaking labour.
Lafarge, a multinational building material company, says Agilia concrete is able to smooth itself into a flat and level surface.
Lafarge invented Agilia in the late nineties and has used it for several years in Europe, but it's new here. Onlookers at a demo yesterday at the company's Moodie Drive plant were surprised by how well it worked.
"I'm very impressed," said Americo Rego, president of Ottawa Carpentry. "This would definitely make my guys less tired at the end of the day."
The new product also addresses a major concern in the construction industry: Lack of skilled workers.
"Nobody coming out of school these days is saying 'I want to be a floor finisher,' because it's heavy work.
"The physical strain on the human body placing concrete is immense," said Al Brown, Lafarge Canada's general manager of ready-mix in Ottawa.
"It's a lot of back-breaking, bent-over, wheeling and shoveling and raking, whereas with this product (self-levelling concrete) there's none of that.
"Literally, with about two minutes of instruction, you could pour and finish your own basement floor in under an hour. As opposed to a finishing crew, which would be three to four men for about six hours."
To back up their claim, Lafarge set up a race, with a team of four experienced workers using traditional concrete taking on a small, 21-year old bartender using Agilia.
To put it mildly, she kicked their butts.
Lafarge mixes different types of sand and different types of cement, and "super-plasticizers," -- polymers that make the sandy particles slide over each other more easily, so that the liquid concrete flows better,
The self-levelling concrete costs more, but Mr. Brown calculates it would add about $80 to the material cost of a typical garage floor, while saving a couple of hundred dollars in labour.
More importantly, he says, it solves the problem of a North American shortage of workers skilled with concrete -- a skill that takes years to teach and perfect, while the work causes severe strain and sometimes injury.
The new concrete "is not designed to put guys out of work. It's designed to help the finishers (companies), because one of their greatest problems is getting trained finishers."
Sorry about the poor quality of the picture but is was part of the article printed above.
But it gives you an idea of the event.
Gabe
I don't understand what's 'new' about this concrete, since we used a similar product in 1976 in UK to pour 'trench-fill' foundations so it's been around at least a quarter of a century now.
IanDG
As the article indicated, it has been used in Europe for a while but not to our standards and conditions. (less than 10 years)
We've used slurries as well but this mix is far more fluid than anything available to date and to a much higher strength than anything you or I have needed.
Gabe
Here's a link that you may like to view regarding new concrete mixes.
Enjoy
Gabe
http://www.architechmag.com/Articles/detailArchitech.asp?ArticleID=2374
interesting.One thought I had: better make damn sure everything is level. Otherwise you might watch your driveway flow down the street!
One thought I had: better make damn sure everything is level. Otherwise you might watch your driveway flow down the street!
Storme,you've put your finger right on the conundrum.
The problem, they say, is there is not enough trained concreters and it takes "too long" to train new ones. So let's adopt self levelling mixes.
So give it a couple of years and where will we find the guys who know how to place concrete on that 1 in 10 driveway or the plant that knows how to make a mix that wont run away on the slope?
Ian
So give it a couple of years and where will we find the guys who know how to place concrete on that 1 in 10 driveway or the plant that knows how to make a mix that wont run away on the slope?
Now that's an extremely cynical look into the future.
Ian, it's only one mix out of hundreds, not the replacement for every mix under the sun!
I may give it a try if the need is there for a super flow mix but I'm not going to change to this mix for most applications. No one will.
Gabe
Gabe, it's the drugs.
about 17 years ago I was managing a road rebuilding project where we hand placed about 30 MILES of concrete slab. (site constraints meant we couldn't physically fit a paving machine on the site.) The marketers tried to sell me the first generation of self-leveling concrete. The marketer's selling point was that I would be able to place faster with a smaller crew. But when the slabs slope 3% one way and 6% the other you really need a mix with a slump less than 2in. and even getting this was a struggle at times.
so I remain more than a bit cynical where concrete companies are concerned.
Ian
Yes, you should apologize for that - we need a better picture! :-P
regarding the use of this stuff - others have mentioned here things like driveways and other "sloped" applications. It sounds to me like this is only for "interior" or no-slope jobs - basement floors, garages with immediate pitch-away outside the door, etc.
Can this tolerate any slope at all?
Also, in the case of a basement floor, I would think it would be perfect. You have the walls to contain the pour and poly and foam below. . .
Would my local concrete suppliers have any idea what I am talking about if I asked about this stuff? What sort of surface finish do you get if you just float it once and let it go? And, finally, I almost answered to your post (tongue in cheek): Looks like the same stuff used to pour residential formed walls around here - keeps them from hacvng to move the truck around the job-site. I think they call it 8-100 mix - pour it in an 8' wall and it will run 100'
If you have a LaFarge plant in your city, they may have Agilia, you would have to call to verify.
The finish is about the same as a wood float.
Gabe
I agree with Jim: It sounds like this is designed for floors, like basements and garages. Just look at the demonstration. I don't think it will work for anything that is not dead level.