Signed for the hours. Not the dollars. Five questions we'll answer: Why do some contractors count on change orders to improve their profit margins? Are data-center owners becoming more selective about construction spending? How long does it ac…

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…

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 …

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…

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…

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…

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…

Protect those margins...oh, we meant jobs. | OpenAI “Liars are not believed even when they speak the truth.” - Aesop Rebar is one of those things people love to ignore until it becomes a problem. Then it becomes everyone’s problem. It hits t…

No end in sight. | OpenAI The latest earnings reports from Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet were released on April 29, 2026, and they tell a pretty simple story for the concrete industry. The AI data center buildout is not slowing down yet. Wal…

Imagine building this without concrete. | Getty Images "Those who talk should do and only those who do should talk."  - Nassim Nicholas Taleb Data center owners have a concrete problem. Most of them just do not see it yet. Concrete is no…

“Good intentions tell you nothing about the actual consequences.” — Thomas Sowell Layoffs are recession behavior. Period. I do not care what economists call it. If demand slows and a company does not need as many people, headcount gets cu…

“𝗧𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴, 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲.” — Robert Louis Stevenson I was watching a youth basketball game recently. One team couldn’t miss. Full-court press. Traps. Fast breaks. Running up …

Concrete didn’t become the default building material because it was fashionable. It won because it made sense. It was durable. It was local. And for a long time, it was the economical choice when you looked at the whole building—not just one line it…

Making it look easy. Adobe For a long time, success in the concrete industry was simple. Know the spec.Hit strength.Keep the schedule moving. If something went wrong, you pointed to the drawings, the mix design, or the standard and moved on. …

What’s the productivity benchmark for a guitar-shaped building? (Miami Herald). This week’s post was inspired by a LinkedIn post from Eric Koehler. Hello Eric. Eric is a sharp, thoughtful guy and someone I respect. He was also a guest on the Concr…

Grit. (Bakerconstruction.com) If you ever sit down with Dan Baker long enough, you realize the man doesn’t talk in clichés. He talks in lived experience.  Everything he says comes from some job where his back was against the wall. Or a moment when…

Somebody’s paying for all this concrete… hope it’s not my Xbox bill. (photo credit: Adobe) I ran across a couple of blog posts from Harris “Kuppy” Kupperman over at Praetorian Capital. The guy’s a veteran hedge fund manager who’s seen a few booms a…