Author: Command Alkon

The ABCs of EPDs December 17, 2012 Odds are, many of you have already heard about EPDs, Environmental Product Declarations, and PCRs, Product Category Rules. For those who haven’t, an EPD is sort of like a food nutrition label, except it lists things like CO2 generation, heavy metals content and waste water generation. The purpose of…

Spiderman, MacGyver and concrete November 5, 2012 I’ve heard it said that, “A Swiss Army knife can do a thousand and one things, but none of them well.” Trying to make one thing serve two purposes usually means that one purpose gets the short end of the stick. Spiderman is a hero, while Peter Parker…

Of Gods and Monsters October 22, 2012 I was supposed to be at the ACI convention in Toronto, but a nasty virus decided I should stay at home. I wanted to talk about the great things would hear about at the convention but since it was just starting, that wasn’t going to happen. Next I thought I would try…

Let the Bakers Bake October 8, 2012 When was the last time you bought a cake? How did you order it? Maybe you told the baker you wanted a chocolate layer cake with pink roses on it for a little girl. If you were getting fancy, maybe you ordered it with buttercream frosting. If you were…

In these days of an ever increasing demand for improvements in concrete performance, it is easy for specifiers to continually decrease the maximum allowable water/cement ratio for concrete they specify. After all, a lower water/cement ratio produces higher performance concrete, right? And everyone knows that it only takes a 0.26 water/cement ratio to fully hydrate cement, right?…

(Readers note: While my topic today specifically references ready mix concrete quality control, it is also applicable to contractors and any other industry, so I hope you will read on.) Do you have a Quality Plan in place? You should. Of the 28 respondents to the 2010 NRMCA Quality Benchmark Survey published in the January…

If I Ruled the Concrete Industry July 2, 2012 Have you ever tried to change the way people do things, only to have someone ask you, “Who made you God?” Well, I just realized that, even though I am not God, I do control what goes into my blog. Therefore, the following is a list of things that I…

Well-Graded Aggregates vs. Gap-Graded Aggregates June 11, 2012 Over the past decade a major “discussion” has arisen over the desirability of the use of well-graded aggregates (WGA) vs. gap-graded aggregates (GGA) in concrete. The discussion has centered on two areas: 1) the technical benefits of WGA vs. GGA and 2) the use of specifications to…