Diesel prices change daily. Your contract price? That was locked in six months ago. Construction keeps getting more expensive. So why doesn't that automatically mean construction contractors are making more money? Here's my argument: The companies…

Low-carbon concrete. Now with added labor, paperwork, and plywood. There's something about the concrete industry's push to reduce carbon emissions that continues to bother me. We're constantly hearing how cement manufacturers are reducing their ca…

AI-generated. Actual construction still requires humans. What if I told you that in 2008, America was building facilities to import natural gas because we were concerned about having enough of our own? And that eight years later, we were conver…

Why do we spend months developing a construction schedule without the people who are actually going to build the concrete work? Then we finally award the concrete package and tell the contractor, “Here is the schedule. We need you to hit these d…

More going than staying. | Photo credit: Endress+Hauser Have you looked at the price of diesel lately? The national average has pushed past $6 per gallon. Tight global supplies of diesel and other distillates, combined with higher crude oil prices…

Bodhi had his wave. Construction has data centers. | Image: Point Break (1991), 20th Century Fox Data centers are getting hammered right now. Some communities do not want them. Some people question the electricity and water they use. Others simply …

Before ‘American manufacturing’ came with a charging cable. | Albert Kahn Associates 1924. What happens when America puts up a wall around its economy? We actually ran something close to that experiment for several decades. Beginning in the late …

Nothing to worry about. The backlog is full. | Credit: Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago You’re a Concrete Contractor in 1925. Business Has Never Been Better. It is 1925. You own a concrete construction company in an Amer…

Just another quiet little infrastructure project. | Library of Congress What happens when America decides it needs an entirely new kind of infrastructure? At first, the answer is pretty simple. Build it. Build it fast. Figure out the problems l…

All the testing said it was good concrete... It is 2 a.m. You have 40,000 square feet of slab to place today. The pump is set up. The finishers are there. Trucks are starting to roll. The superintendent wants the slab down before the heat gets…

Just another small concrete job. | Wyomingnews.com Data centers are consuming a lot of concrete. That probably isn't news to anyone working in construction right now. But here's the question I think is more interesting: What happens to the concr…

The concrete industry's daily lab. | Concrete Logic original. The federal government has a new plan to speed up innovation in cement and concrete. On July 29, Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced the launch of the Center of Excellence for Advan…

We warned about water stress in 2024. It has hit home. | AI generated. "Data centers use millions of gallons of water every day." You've probably heard that statement before. Maybe you've even repeated it. But let's stop for a second. What is a…

Canadian cement, eh? What’s the tariff all aboot? | cslships.com Who pays a 50% tariff on Canadian cement? Here is a hint. It is not Canada. President Trump announced a 50% tariff on selected Canadian goods, including cement, scheduled to take e…

The concrete will never freeze. But don’t worry, we tested the air anyway. Let me ask you a simple question. If the concrete is not exposed to freezing and thawing, why are we putting air in it? That question came up during my conversation with D…

The pour started on schedule. The concrete had other plans. The truck shows up. The slump looks fine. The crew starts placing. Then everything speeds up. The concrete stiffens in the chute. The pump operator starts fighting it. The finishers l…

Cloud Computing, 1946 Style | Credit: U.S. Army photo, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. I got the idea for this blog post from the No Agenda podcast, which I donate to every month. Hint, hint. Now would be a great time to stop reading and do…

You work hard. The concrete business is not easy. Early mornings. Long days. Weather problems. Schedule pressure. Phone calls after hours. Plenty of stress. Still, every paycheck, you do the responsible thing. You put money into your 401(k). …

RGGI headquarters in NY | Wikipedia In a recent post, I wrote about 10 Reasons Virginia Power Bills Are Going Up, and Data Centers Are Just One. The point was simple. Data centers are part of the story. They are not the whole story. Virginia’s …

What was in this mix?  Type I/II cement is making a comeback. At least that is what the market is asking for. Contractors want it. Ready-mix producers want it. Owners want concrete to act like concrete again. After years of frustration with…

The energy didn't disappear. It moved. | OpenAI If you listened to EP #159, you heard the news: a large swath of cement manufacturers including ones in are making Type I/II cement available again. The market spoke. Contractors complained. Ready-…

I was driving home from work the other day and was almost to the entrance of my neighborhood. The right lane was coned off, and there were four or five Dominion trucks lined up. Crews were setting new power poles. Nothing dramatic. No press con…

Close your eyes and swing? | OpenAI “Hitting is timing. Pitching is upsetting timing.” — Warren Spahn Trying to figure out where the concrete market is headed feels a little like standing in the batter’s box. You do not know what pitch is comi…

Fortera ReCarb Plant | forteraglobal.com “What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” – John Lubbock  The concrete industry has heard enough slogans. Low-carbon cement. Green concrete. Carbon capture. Sustainable binders. Better ch…