EP #114: The True Cost of Low Carbon Concrete

Seth Tandett (00:01)
Welcome to another episode of the Concrete Logic Podcast and today I have Dr. Jon Belkowitz. He's back and we're going to talk about the true cost of type 1L cement and these new cements or no? I took that the wrong way. What are we going to talk about today?

Dr Jon (00:08)
You're welcome.

The excessive cost of low carbon concrete. Because what that does is it's all inclusive. TUT. OL. The Type 1L cements, the 323, you know, Michigan gas. The whole political aspect of it. Well, what were you supposed to do? I think all of that.

Seth Tandett (00:26)
I like, that sounds better.

Dr Jon (00:50)
And today I really, you know, I want it to be specific. I put an article together. If you don't mind sharing your screen, could share my, let me share my screen. Is that okay?

Seth Tandett (01:03)
Yeah. Do you mind if I remind everybody what they can do to support the podcast?

Dr Jon (01:09)
I'll shut up, go for

it. Yeah, and open your wallets. Stop buying that Zin stuff. Get the cheaper stuff and donate somebody. Don't even donate, become a member because the reason, wait, sorry, you were supposed to do, I thought I was supposed do.

Seth Tandett (01:22)
That's

all right. Well, we got we got a couple few things going on. No, I appreciate you get excited when I get to start talking about this. But anyways So going back to how you can support the concrete logic podcast There's there's several ways the first the first way is if you enjoy the podcast Please please share it with a colleague or a co-worker or whoever else maybe just just just blast everybody on your email list Just send it out to everybody and somebody

Dr Jon (01:28)
Yeah.

Seth Tandett (01:52)
pick it up. That's the first thing you can do. The second thing you can do is if you go to ConcreteLogicPodcast.com on the home page, there's a couple ways you can get a hold of me. There's a contact link up at the top of the page and then at the bottom right hand corner you'll see a little microphone. You can click on that and that will record right off of your computer. And what I'm looking for there, and I want to thank a whole bunch of

There was a whole bunch of people this past week or so that have reached out in this fashion. what they were doing was suggesting topics and or guests that they would like to hear on the show. So please do that. That helps the podcast immensely. And then the last way you can help out is on the same Concrete Logic podcast.

Dot-com home page. There's a donate button and you click on that and it takes you to a PayPal checkout and you can put any dollar amount you want in there and that That supports the podcast as well To pay for like I shared. I think the last on the last episode that there's software and editing stuff and The hardware, you know microphones and other things that you need for

put on a podcast so it helps pay for all those things. Or like the newer intro. think people are like the new intro versus me talking. They got a professional on there talking. So yeah, pays for things like that.

Dr Jon (03:36)
I didn't like

that as much. I thought you were just fine.

Seth Tandett (03:40)
Well,

well, I can't make everyone happy Yep, so those are the ways you can support the show. You can also check out a concrete logic Academy comm where we're creating a a Essentially a network of folks that want to expand their concrete knowledge and we're we're starting to put on put classes there that you can

you can actually get professional development hours as well. Dr. Yes you did.

Dr Jon (04:14)
I just finished those.

Those were fricking awesome. I recommend for the PEs out there that you hate going through classes because they suck. And just to let you know, most of the classes out there are the worst. These were easy to get through, so good job.

Seth Tandett (04:31)
Well, I appreciate that and we're hoping to get some dr. Jon's classes on there as well. So Keep an eye out for that All right, let's get into the topic again. Dr. Jon excessive cost of low carbon concrete Did you want to share it you're gonna share your article there that you you know

Dr Jon (04:49)
Yeah, right there.

Unless I'm already sharing it. Here you go. Oops. Give me two more seconds. You know, for those of you who try to share an article from LinkedIn, to get rid of the comments on the right-hand side, just go into the Edit function, and it gives you a widescreen view of your article.

So, you know, Seth, you and I and Rich and a few other people have been talking about low carbon concrete and the implications of this, you know, sprint to the finish that we've been doing with our industry. And, you know, I try not to point fingers and get upset too much. It's just part of my business to say, okay, where's the, where are issues? What are the root causes of our problems? And that's pointing a finger, but.

And in this case, I'm pointing, you know, our discussion, it's going directly at the 595 cements. But, you to a degree, you have to feel bad for the cement industry.

I mean, for a good two years, year and a half, the cement industry was put under the microscope by Bill Gates and a book he wrote and then an article that CNN wrote about how cement is the worst material in the world and it's melting the polar ice caps and it's killing penguins. And we have to get rid of cement tomorrow. So in response, there was this knee-jerk reaction.

And now we're in this place with these 595 cements, this low carbon concrete, Michigan. And that's what I wanted to talk about today is something really specific. it's, yeah, I wrote an article. don't want to read the flippin' article, but you know, I think you had a gentleman on from ACCS, Mr. Hernandez.

Seth Tandett (06:53)
Yep, Mike.

Dr Jon (06:54)
and I was trying, that's why I was scrolling through the Concrete Logic podcast. I was trying to look for his podcast because I think they're the only organization that is starting to put both short and long term data together. Is that a fair assessment that you guys had a podcast that reviewed some of that information that they're putting together?

Seth Tandett (07:19)
Yeah, that was I believe episode 92. Yep. And yeah, he was looking for some help from people to submit.

Dr Jon (07:24)
Okay.

Seth Tandett (07:33)
not just mixes that weren't working that they were having issues with, but more of the ones that were successful with. So think we're gathering all that data. I think they're still working on it, that they're doing it with ACI.

Dr Jon (07:44)
Yeah.

reach out, I'm just going to reach out to him, out to Mike Hernandez, ACCS, low carbon, and then the Type 1-0. You know, we, I, you know, we started talking...

Seth Tandett (08:00)
Yep. Yep.

Dr Jon (08:06)
about this before the show and you know should we talk about this we've talked about it enough at Nausium and it is a hot topic right now. The reason why I wanted to talk to you is because the the phone calls and the work that we've been getting and and we're a part of the the projects and I use the Department of Transportation as a barometer. It's not a barometer, it's the bar, right? Well...

Seth Tandett (08:30)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Dr Jon (08:33)
You know, the crazy thing about the DOT part of the concrete industry, it's like the residential industry on steroids. Right? They expect their concrete at the lowest cost.

Right? It's all about dollars and they put, normally they put limitations on pound per cubic yard or, you know, not only the mix design, but the cost, you know, how you can hire people and, you know, the hourly rate that you hire them at. So it's not easy working with DOTs. And then there are some DOTs that, and I don't know if you've experienced this, that if you come short, up short with your compressive strength, let's say 800 to 1000 PSI in your cylinders, and if they do

cores and the cores to some degree match that, they're gonna backcharge you or in some cases for the shortening of life of the concrete and then in some cases they might make you R &R, know, rip and replace it. And that wasn't a common thing that was used but now there are at least six DOTs that we work with.

that and far be it for me to give out their names and air their dirty laundry, but you know, they've had to truncate and they have great maintenance programs, great concrete programs, but they've had to truncate their maintenance programs by a decade or two because some of the issues with these new 595 cements. Now, Seth, is that a surprise to you that

that information, the number of DOTs, and obviously you've gotta believe what I'm saying and I'm not bullshitting you, but, right?

Seth Tandett (10:22)
Yeah.

It's, on one hand, the number of DOTs is, it is shocking to me. But on the other hand, I'm not surprised that people are having issues because we've, like you said, we've talked about it plenty and we kind of, you know, through the podcast have documented some issues along the way but...

I'm surprised, well, I would say that people are thinking decades down the road and they're already shortening the life of whatever infrastructure they're putting. That seems extreme, but I guess if you could share what you're, I mean, what are the problems that they're seeing and I guess why.

Because I read through your article and it's all the things that we talked about, how you can mitigate these new challenges with the new cements. Are they doing these things and just not seeing the results? Or it's, I guess, explain more.

Dr Jon (11:39)
You know, the latest and greatest conversation I had was surprised and there was some lack of knowledge that there had been a change of cements at all. And please bear in mind I'm talking about DOT level and it was almost as if like...

You you find out that your wife's been cheating on you. Right? Like, we didn't know. who was gonna tell us? Like, our job is to just make specifications, know, recommendations, then we disseminate it down the line. Like, we're not...

concrete experts, we're civil engineers. We don't get into the chemistry of it, and that's to a certain degree, they're absolutely right.

But then the question turns into, I know everybody else is having the same problem. I drive from state to state and here, there, they have the same, why am I the only one asking about it? Why am I the only one throwing up their arms? Like, what happened? We put this concrete in two, three years ago.

If I was told anything, it was at a conference, I had a lunch, and I was told, it's a one-to-one.

So.

Seth Tandett (13:15)
Initial

well, I would I would jump in there and say they the initial

The initial information shared by the cement producers was one-to-one, but I think we got past that, right? We got people start realizing that.

Dr Jon (13:30)
you don't get past that when the people who are working on the designs and specifications, they only go out to a conference once a year.

Seth Tandett (13:39)
yeah, I gotcha.

Dr Jon (13:41)
You know, you and I are on the heartbeat of this subject. Not just every day, but man, I'm reading it over the weekends. You know, there was just a paper published in Concrete Canada or Concrete UK. I shared it this morning. It's on the printer. As soon as I get done with this, I have a cup of decaf waiting to be made so I can sit down and read that two and a half page article that looks flipping awesome.

Seth Tandett (13:49)
Mm-hmm.

Dr Jon (14:08)
But normal people don't do that. You know, I'm stealing a part of like something else that I need to do to like sneak away and read this. And I'm gonna try to read it as, you know, in depth as possible in the window I have. But most people who operate in the construction industry, it's no fail trust.

You know, know, Daniel McCoy is a, a, a, a frequent, guest on this show. He works with Speedway Concrete. He understands concrete mix design, cement chemistry, concrete admixtures, the tarantula curve by the great Tyler Lay, concrete pumping and how it deals with cement paste and admixtures. That being said, when he is in a briefing.

with a major project and somebody asks him about the type of concrete that he's gonna use and is he concerned about it, he looks at his concrete producer, Steven Crawford from Speedway and he says, Steven, are we good? And Steven says, yep, we're good. Dan says, no, I don't got any problems with that. And that's the way it should be. There should be this no fail trust, right? There is something to be said for, there is a responsibility across the board and I won't deny that.

Seth Tandett (15:23)
Mm-hmm.

Dr Jon (15:29)
But to a certain degree, if I'm going to understand where the cement industry came from, like, hey, we had to do something, I can also understand part of the civil and construction engineering side of the industry that said, holy moly guacamole, where did this come from?

And what they're dealing with is concrete that's supposed to be 20 years old or looks 20 years old acting like it's 20 years old and it's two years old.

Seth Tandett (15:49)
What?

Yeah.

Well the threat of whatever they called them, CO2 taxing or whatever, that's what I was told is why they had to do something and that's why they panicked and that's why it all got pushed out so quickly. Because of the threat of those.

Dr Jon (16:22)
You know, I understand that that's the excuse that I teed up. know, gosh, we had to do something. And you know, I've listened to a lot of these ACI 323 presentations done by Matt Adams and a few other folk. And...

Seth Tandett (16:30)
Yep.

Dr Jon (16:45)
A knee-jerk reaction, I get it, but to put such restraint in such boundary conditions on the industry is foolhardy at best. And now we're starting to see the teeth of this ugly monster that we've created. You know, when we talk about DOTs, I said it's like the residential industry on steroids. When we commit to DOT projects,

You know, they're not short. They're not short loads, right? They're not three and five yards, right? We're talking thousands of cubic yards over miles that are lanes wide and more than six inches thick. Like there's a commitment level here that, you know, should have...

we should have done a lot more thorough homework. I guess I need to say where I'm going with this and there's all.

Seth Tandett (17:43)
Yeah, well they

they measure they measure the global was a global warming potential Yeah, yeah, so that all that stuff to see you know reduction of carbon all that stuff is is is Measured at the time of construction

Dr Jon (17:54)
GWP, think that's a calculation.

Seth Tandett (18:07)
They don't even look beyond that.

Dr Jon (18:08)
They don't, and that's part of Matt's presentation is what's different between over the big blue pond is there's like six or nine sections of a concrete job site or construction site. We're only working one through three, which is basically raw material to the gate. And once we hit that gate, clock stops. We don't care anymore.

That's the calculation. It's not a measurement. It's a calculation that we're And again, that's very foolhardy where it's one control point. You know, we're not looking down the road to see what impacts our decisions are having on concrete. this is not one of those things. You know, I've been bringing new technologies into the concrete industry since I had a full head of majestic hair, Seth. And...

You know, the classic question that I get from engineers is, where's your five years worth of data? Show me a structure that's been in place for 10 years.

You know, the crazy thing about this cement conversation, Rich loves doing this to me. You still there that I hang up on you? Rich loves doing this to me. Before we can get in the conversation, Jon, let's start defining some things. You know, like I don't know if you know this, but Rich was a professor at Texas A And I think he...

Seth Tandett (19:22)
No, you're still here.

Uh-huh.

Dr Jon (19:41)
You know, he might have been a kindergarten teacher because he sometimes talks to me like I'm four or five years old. Like, let's define things first, Jon, right? And the 595, people haven't read the flipping ASTM and they call it a limestone cement. You can't do that.

That is a misconception, especially with we have an EPD for this cement now, but reality is that cement is ever-changing. The great Tom Adams, Thomas Adams, president of the American Coal Ash Association, just gave a presentation on the benefiting of blended fly ashes.

You sub you use you use you substitute fly ash for cement in that entire presentation. Our cement now it's not a limestone cement. It's a hodgepodge of fine Portland. Some fine limestones that's an inert material. I don't care what people try to sell you on. It is an inert material and then you got all these chemicals that nobody has to tell you about.

You don't have to tell you what's in the mix. They don't have to tell you what's in the blend. 595, the title of it. Can you scroll up? this is me. I have to scroll. Stop it. Be nice. Kid woke up at four o'clock this morning puking. It's a blended cement. It's not a hydraulic limestone cement. It's not a Portland cement. It's a blended cement that they only have to give you five bits of information. And with that...

Seth Tandett (21:08)
That's you.

man.

Dr Jon (21:29)
what the industry has seen and if you're seeing this too, you don't have to contact us. There are so many versions of intelligent concrete out there nowadays. God bless. Early age and later age cracking, I call it premature cracking. Well, Jon, premature cracking doesn't necessarily, especially at the soft surface, doesn't go back to the strength of the concrete. No shit. Excuse my language, this is a family rated show.

Seth Tandett (21:57)
huh.

Dr Jon (21:58)
There was a wonderful book.

written by Peter Taylor. Did you read that book yet? I told you to read that book.

It is called Curing Concrete. Curing Concrete. I tore this flippin' book apart. And if you guys don't know who Peter Taylor is, shame on you. Read this book. In this book, Peter, they said send an author, or send a poet. This book is effing amazing. Peter says in this book, and of course I'm not going to find it, is that...

Seth Tandett (22:11)
it's not ringing a bell.

yeah.

Dr Jon (22:40)
The surface of our concrete pavements, bridge decks, slabs, dams, locks, levees, spillways, taxiways, runways, what have you, has nothing to do with the concrete strength.

and everything to do with the aesthetics. Who cares, Jon? A lot of people care about the aesthetics, but more importantly, the durability and the life cycle of the concrete. And I am only paraphrasing this wonderful author. I recommend this book as part of your library and you tear it apart with a pen, but the man is not flipping wrong.

The plastic shrinkage, drying shrinkage, volume change, chemical shrinkage, the dusting at the surface, excessive latience, all that what we get from a change in the water demand of our binding material has a wild impact on a reduction in our concrete service life. I mean, if you look at abrasion resistance, right, do you have any abrasion resistance samples on your desk?

Seth Tandett (23:48)
No.

Dr Jon (23:50)
I've got I've got a few here. So so let's take a look. Here we go. This is a nice one. That's a nice one I want I want to have one where you can like see the aggregate here. Okay, I Think we can see that right? You got your cement paste and then this is the trough from the the stone wheels right

Seth Tandett (24:10)
Yep.

Dr Jon (24:15)
Now, what you're seeing here is there's different phases that the concrete surface goes through when it gets deteriorated by abrasive forces. The first one is the first line of defense, that cementitious cap. Now, here's that cementitious cap, and you can see there's no aggregate in it.

Right now, well Jon, aggregate is pretty tough. It's tougher than cement paste. Yeah, normally when we have aggregate, which is in the trough, we have the interface between the aggregate and the hydrated cement matrix.

And if we have a weak hydrated cement matrix, which if you've ever read the A.M. Neville book, the hydrated cement matrix in the body of the concrete is much stronger than the hydrated cement matrix at the interfacial zone between the body of the concrete and the rock. And with that, with abrasion resistance, instead of getting a polishing effect,

or work hardening effect, get aggregate that get torn out of our concrete. So if we start out with a cap that is extremely weak and subpar dusting, has more porosity to it, know, premature cracking, then our resiliency to abrasive forces diminishes very quickly. Now you compound that with a lot of DOTs have gone to grooving and not timing.

were prematurely damaging that concrete where ASTM C150 cements were more forgiving these blended cements.

It's like the rose gold argument. know, Whitney and I went to a jewelry store and the young lady behind the counter tried to convince me that the ring I wanted to get or she wanted to sell me with the rose gold was more valuable and more precious than a 100 % gold ring. And you can't convince me that if you take a cross section of rose gold,

It's a percent copper and a percent gold. And copper traditionally is a cheaper material. You're selling me a cement that is 10 to 15%. And by the way, when they tell you 10%, normally they mean 11.4 % because that's the standard deviation that they're allowed. So you're taking my glue, my Portland cement, and you're reducing it by a minimum of 8%. Let's be kind to them.

In what other effing industry is it better to cut your glue and replace it with an inactive ingredient to get the same results?

Seth Tandett (27:07)
Well that's because we've been over designing.

Dr Jon (27:09)
Right.

And the concrete structural engineering industry has been assuming that we're only getting 85 % of the strength that we're delivering. Who cares? This, that excuse, because we're over designing, does not mean we...

We ball and chain the industry to a subpar material that is gonna wreak havoc on generations to come. And it's not even other generations, it's starting with our generation. Now here's the problem with that. It's not only we've been taught that it's our fault, the engineer's fault, we've been over designing.

And by the way, ACI 323, it tells you ready mix providers that you no longer have to overdesign. That's the great thing about 323. Instead of having a brand new mix that requires at least 12 sets over a three year period to dictate your standard deviation, let's say if you don't have those 12 sets per ASTMC 94 or ACI 214, you can just do a 1200 PSI overdesign.

You don't have to do any of that shit according to 323. You design it what they order it and you're not going to be held accountable according to 323. Right? So the problem...

Seth Tandett (28:41)
Which in fact, you probably should

be over designing now.

Dr Jon (28:47)
Too late for that, So the problem with blaming, hey, it's the over design issue. Now what we've done is anytime somebody puts up a fight that, it's the over design issue, I mean, it almost like shuts people up. You know, the argument cannot continue. okay. It's almost like saying somebody's racist.

Right? So the answer to that was now that we've shut everybody up, we tell them, hey, we're taking the decision making out of your, your, possession. You are no longer allowed to make that. We're going to tell you how you're going to become low carbon concrete. And it all started with us convincing the industry that we needed to go from prescriptive to performance.

A long time ago, we not only convinced the industry that, hey, instead of dictating how much cement we need to make the ready mix providers use, we're going to tell them the performance that we want. That became a global and general concept that led to performance everything. It first went to performance based admixtures. I'm not only going to give you a high range, I'm going to give you a high range that increases your slump life.

I'm gonna give you a high range that you can use in cold weather. No man, don't sell me that. Just sell me a high range, sell me an accelerator. Let me do the, no, no, no, no, we know. Send us your cement and we're gonna, you have fly ash too, we're gonna sell you a separate high range that you use just for your fly ash mixes. Somewhere along the line, the industry forgot we make performance based on prescription.

Now you couple that, it's always a coupling event with it's your fault with over design. We gave you the chance to make the decision and look what you did. Too much cement. We're gonna take your cement, we're replacing it with less cement.

And then by July of 2025, if you don't conform to these GWP values that we based off of the type one, two mixes, we didn't even base it off of the type one L. We based it off of the mixes that you used to use. take your federal funding.

I'm afraid for the concrete pump companies. Gary Brown, who is probably top three of my favorite guests that you've had on the show, he once said, the concrete pump is the ultimate lie detector on a concrete job site.

Seth Tandett (31:42)
Mm-hmm.

Dr Jon (31:51)
I think Matt Fonte, who really needs to be on your list of people on the show.

concrete paving guru. Amazing. He would say the same thing about pavers. Pavers are the ultimate lie detector on a job site, right? I'm afraid for the concrete pumpers, not so much for the pavers because I feel like they've been dealing with this for a few years now.

Seth Tandett (32:02)
Yeah.

Dr Jon (32:18)
but the Concrete Pumping Association should be looking at the impact of the ACI-323 in those GWP scores and how it's going to increase concrete pump pressures, maintenance costs, and fuel consumption.

Seth Tandett (32:33)
Right.

Dr Jon (32:34)
Now, the DOTs are experiencing it now with the shortage in service life, life cycle.

Seth Tandett (32:44)
Yeah.

Dr Jon (32:53)
So how do we address that?

Seth Tandett (32:59)
I mean the best thing to do is to talk about it but it doesn't seem to be... I don't know. It doesn't seem to be... I mean it's still out there but doesn't seem to be on the forefront of what people are...

worried about anymore.

Dr Jon (33:19)
I respectfully

disagree. I think it's become a larger conversation. It started out with Flyash. Now we got shitty Type 1Ls. Now we got ACI 323. It's come to a head. And I wouldn't dismiss, and I don't think you are, the impact that the Concrete Logic podcast has.

Seth Tandett (33:27)
huh.

No, I'm, what I'm saying.

Dr Jon (33:46)
Why don't you

do a The Rock eyebrow raise on that one? It's true.

Seth Tandett (33:52)
Well, when you say you start listing all those things off, it seems like we've been dealing with something the entire time in the industry, you go all the way back to, I started in early 2000s. So going back then was what? It was high ranges and then there was 2002-ish, I think, is when.

Dr Jon (34:14)
High ranges, P2P.

Seth Tandett (34:20)
the last time performance specs was a kind of a thing and no? okay.

Dr Jon (34:24)
2002, no, that was like 2006, 2007. Yeah, they had the whole

P2P thing in Dallas.

Seth Tandett (34:30)
Well, I also tell people that I've been, I lose track of time. Something I say was two years ago is really four years ago. It just, it's happening to me now. But I, when you start listening, rattling all those things off, it just seems like, and I think maybe Rich has said this before, is that we've always had challenges throughout, you know.

Dr Jon (34:40)
Okay.

Mmm.

Seth Tandett (34:52)
Industry there's not been one time where we're like hey everything is great in concrete. There's nothing that's Challenging at this point. It's always changing

Dr Jon (35:02)
I don't agree. I'm not happy.

Seth Tandett (35:05)
that's good, I

don't want you to come on here and agree with me all the time. Yeah.

Dr Jon (35:08)
I do. That's the funny thing. I do agree with you a lot. And that's why I like these conversations.

But what I like even more than that is you push me back. Push back. I don't live in a world of definitive. I know that I haven't been alive long enough to know what concrete was like in the 30s.

you know, in the 20s, in the 40s, you know, when we first started using hydraulic cements and first started using things like the tarantula curve and making cylinders. Like there's a wonderful book by Joseph E. Stevens called The Hoover Dam. And...

Seth Tandett (35:48)
Uh-huh.

Dr Jon (35:51)
It's it's it got three awards not because of the amazing pictures, although they're amazing pictures, but the great job this guy did talking about how this thing was built and he gives an entire fucking soliloquy to the way the concrete was constructed and made and used and I mean the bidding wars so.

Yes, I think there's always been problems within the concrete industry. It's like getting a mortgage in New Jersey. The more people you get involved, the higher likelihood you're going to have of assholes. But the the susceptibility to internal problems, while that was huge, external problems and people having their their fingers on different buttons like

a congressman and federal grants having an impact on how our cement is made was never really something that we had to contend with. And ACIs being written in a fashion that nobody has ever seen since the birth of this institution because...

And that's another discussion, who really wrote ACI 323? That's a funny one. It's almost like the Denver International Airport. Was it really the group or was it one person who worked for ACI? How that happened, well, we had to do something before we were told to do it. What fuck does that mean? Who tells us what to do? And your point that it seems like...

Nobody's doing or saying anything about it. Remember there are there are a few things you have to keep in mind when it comes to ready mix and I I really wish Rich was on the phone right now or the meeting with us because he says is so much better than I do there is no line item on a Contract that you have with a ready mix provider for research That that that goes into a little bit further in their yearly budget

they don't have a good practices evaluation thing either. Everything that happens at a ready mix plant happens live. Like they might go to a barbecue, they might go out to a lunch, they might have a pour with some blocks here and there. But the ultimate reality is they're emptying a silo and filling a silo. They're emptying tanks or filling tanks.

It's not, we get to try it out for a long period of time. I don't care what they tell you. There is no... What's that island that the folks at the universe... There's no treat island for the ready-mix plants and the ready-mix producers. They don't have that time or... You know what treat island is?

I think it's off of the coast. I always get it wrong. It's either Texas or somewhere in Canada, right? It's this island that the great Mike Thomas Mays, know, soul rest in peace, used to use to do accelerated testing for ASR, for freeze-thaw, for salting on concrete. And it's this wooden dock that gets the tide comes in and out like eight times a day or some shit like that. So.

You know, even Jason Weiss and Jason Itaker, who Jason Itaker used to work under Mike Thomas, they're building their own version of Treat Island, either in Texas or Oregon. I always get these places. You're not good with years time. I'm not good with geography. That's why we're concrete people or construction people. None of us have that. Even the best concrete laboratories out there.

and my favorite concrete laboratories, 1195 Quivis Street, think SRM owns that right now, and Speedway, their Columbia City plant, amazing facilities. They're only testing out 5690 days. They're not testing out 10 years, five years, and that's the crazy thing. And I'll shut up after this. Why do you think...

And you grew up with this too. If you came in the early 2000s, you were dealing with polycarboxylates, non-corrosive accelerators, corrosion inhibitors, high volume fly ash mixes. Something engineers and ready mix providers always said to us with new additives was, where's the concrete that's been in place for five years, 10 years? I want to see that before I trust this in my plant.

How come we didn't do that?

Seth Tandett (40:45)
We didn't have time.

Dr Jon (40:47)
Wanda Sykes, Wanda Sykes brought up the fact that during Hurricane Sandy was in 9-11, where the hell was the emergency broadcast system? We've been hearing that thing on weekends since we were fricking puppies. And when we needed it the most, you don't see the emergency broadcast system. Where were these engineers that were the responsible individuals on the job site?

unless it's been in for five years, I can't accept it. Where's the accelerated testing? Ten years? There's my stamp goes on this. Where the hell were they? They're just as much to blame as the flipping cement providers.

Seth Tandett (41:30)
Yep.

Yeah, I would ask people that are listening to this podcast, it'd be interesting to hear who's going back and looking at what they poured two or three years ago. Contractors.

Dr Jon (41:46)
contractors that are being called upon by their DOT folk.

Seth Tandett (41:49)
Well, I know what you're saying is happening at those six DOTs, but I'm curious on the commercial side too. If people are going back and looking at the concrete they placed two or three years ago, what, yeah.

Dr Jon (41:52)
That's my opinion.

yeah.

then you have to ask yourself

who gives a shit on the contract on the private or commercial side.

Seth Tandett (42:13)
Some people do.

Dr Jon (42:16)
Is it the residential folks or is it the folks that put in their shopping?

Seth Tandett (42:19)
I've

worked for companies that, know, typically a concrete contractor has about a year warranty, right? I've been part of companies that if a customer calls, you know, three years after you poured something and say, hey, we got problems, they go out there and take care of it because that's who they are.

Dr Jon (42:25)
Right.

What type of customers make that phone call three years later?

Seth Tandett (42:46)
what I'm thinking about were like, state agency folks.

Dr Jon (42:57)
we're green i say dot you see state agencies potato

Seth Tandett (43:01)
Well,

I was thinking about when I heard it. Yeah, but I get you. Yeah, some of the commercial clients don't care. Yeah, yeah. Probably.

Dr Jon (43:12)
Like commercial, I will

tell you that I have five slabs. I was talking about this yesterday. I have five slabs in front of our shop here. Not a laboratory, it's a shop. S-H-O-P-P-E. New Jersey don't like the name of laboratories. So we had five slabs, right?

Seth Tandett (43:24)
Uh-huh.

Dr Jon (43:35)
Same concrete mix, different amount of fibers, so we stagger them. Three were supposed to be placed on Friday, two were supposed to be placed on Monday. Have I told you this story? Salesman comes out on Thursday, nice guy, he says, hey man, just to let you know, the three slabs you're gonna get placed on Friday have cement from Turkey, and the two slabs you'll have on Monday, the cement will be from Greece.

Seth Tandett (43:46)
No, I don't believe so.

Dr Jon (44:04)
Are you cool with that or do you wanna push it Monday, Thursday so you got the same cement? And I said, I said, is this like Greece, New Jersey or Greece, New York? he's like, no, this is cement over the big blue pond.

I said, dude, you got cement in Nazareth, Pennsylvania that rocks and rolls. Like, what the heck? He's like, I don't know about the Nazareth thing, but it's much less expensive for us to import cement from overseas and not deal with the type one L issues than it is to deal with the type one L issues. And here's the thing. This wasn't a Jon Belkowitz, 10,000 PSI mix design.

Seth Tandett (44:37)
huh.

Dr Jon (44:49)
This was a 3500 PSI air and train exterior flatwork mix that had a water cementitious ratio design of 0.55. Delivered it was 0.57. And concrete looks great. Concrete looks like there is not a crack in it. There's no steel. They're 45 feet long. They're five feet wide, five inches thick, and they're placed on rock like blue chip.

Not a single crack of gorgeous slaps. Been there for three years.

Seth Tandett (45:26)
Yeah.

Dr Jon (45:27)
So there was a post that I got yesterday, or I interacted with yesterday from an admixture salesman. And his thing was, how can you ignore the benefit of type 1L cements? Who cares about the cost? And my response was, I think it's people care about the expense that they're shelling out after the fact.

Seth Tandett (45:47)
Ha ha ha ha!

Mm-hmm.

Dr Jon (45:56)
Right, the damage. What did he say? Well, too bad. Type 1L cements are here to stay. Are they?

I'm not speaking to Baker and your critical path of construction, any of your concrete projects, because I don't know. But the major general contractors that we work with are importing and siloing in major storage facilities their own cement.

There is 60,000 tons coming into Newark Harbor port a month, and in Port of Galveston, there's 200,000 tons of cement coming in a month. Like, Type 1L cements are not here to say, and I guess this is my closing message for your subscribers and your listeners. First of all, if you don't know how to deal with this,

There are many different talks on the Concrete Logic podcast that subtly talk about how to deal with problems like the type 1L cement conversion. Good concrete practices. Well, whether you're listening to Bill Poolish, Joe Shetterly, Robert Higgins, if you're not a member, I recommend it. And if you're not a sponsor, don't be a prick, sponsor.

But there are other avenues, especially if you're a DOT person, you have the power to say what goes in your concrete, because ultimately, you're the one who stamps off on it. And if you don't want Type 1L cement,

You can specify you can't use type 1 l cement. It's crazy, I know. Test me on it. I don't expect any of your listeners to believe me.

Seth Tandett (48:00)
Yeah.

Dr Jon (48:01)
Try it out. What's the worst that can happen? You're have

a meeting with the cement provider here in the States. They're gonna take you out for a nice lunch. And they might give you a nice t-shirt.

Seth Tandett (48:12)
Yeah, the pushback that I've heard so far is it'll just cost you.

Dr Jon (48:16)
And what is the cost comparable to?

Seth Tandett (48:19)
I know,

know, that's the whole point of this thing is just look at the initial cost and not the cost two or three years down the road.

Dr Jon (48:26)
Two or three years down the road, you're ripping and replacing, let's say it's only a mile of highway, 12 inches thick, 14 inches thick pavement.

two lanes, or excuse me, one lane in either direction, you're looking at at least two and a half times your original cost if you're ripping and replacing. And where the hell are you going to put that concrete that you weren't supposed to put until like 2030, or if you're listening to Matt Adams, 100 years down the road? That's the great thing about designing a hundred year structure. You only have to design it once instead of designing a 50 year structure twice.

Seth Tandett (49:08)
Alright.

Let's see what we get out of this one. Let's see what people say.

Dr Jon (49:16)
Well,

hopefully, you know, my griping and complaining and your, you know, you're so calm and collected and that's the balance, Seth. Like I'm a fricking chihuahua and you're like a fricking, you know, German shepherd. Right? I'm a Jack Russell terrier. I like to fricking bite rats and shake the shit out of them. Right? And you're just all noble, right?

I think that's the good balance that we bring that I bring the energy to holy shit watch the out and Okay, now that we have the facts Jon if they are facts Let's break them down to its basics and let's how do we dress these? so I hope that through the craziness on my side and the The calm attitude on sets that that your subscribers and your listens listeners got something out of this

Seth Tandett (49:50)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yes, sir. I appreciate you coming on. I'll put a link to your article because I think that's important for people to take a look at and read. people that have been listening to podcast, you've heard a lot of it, but it's good to get a refresher.

Dr Jon (50:25)
Plus, you know, I talk about concrete six days out of the week. That seventh day, I leave for God and my family. But if somebody has a problem and they don't know who to reach out to, like we offer many services to include concrete testing consulting, pedrography, but we also talk to people. And right now that's what people need. Like they just need to be heard and they need to understand they're not alone. And I sound like an AA meeting, but.

Hey man, there's some real freaking problems that are gonna cost the taxpayer. So yeah.

Seth Tandett (50:57)
Yeah.

All right. Jon, thank you for coming back on the show. And folks, until next time, let's keep it concrete.