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PRESENTED BY: CONCRETE LOGIC ACADEMY
Practical education and ongoing development for concrete professionals at every stage of their career.
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Superflat concrete floors didn’t just appear overnight.
They evolved through decades of trial, error, and innovation.
In this episode of the Concrete Logic Podcast, Chad White from Structural Services Inc. (SSI) returns to explain how the industry went from checking floors with a 10-foot straightedge to producing high-tolerance floors for robotics, automated warehouses, and high-bay storage systems.
Chad has more than 40 years of experience in concrete construction, starting as a cement mason apprentice before running his own company and later becoming a senior concrete consultant with SSI. He has worked on defined-traffic superflat floors, random-traffic high-tolerance slabs, suspended slabs, and industrial floor systems across the country.
We talk about how the means and methods have changed, what actually defines a “superflat” floor, and why today’s demands for automation and robotics are pushing tolerances tighter than ever.
If you’ve ever wondered how contractors actually hit FF, FL, and F-min numbers, this episode explains the real-world process behind it.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
· What actually qualifies as a superflat concrete floor
· How floors were measured before the F-number system
· Why laser screeds and float pans changed everything
· The difference between defined-traffic (F-min) and random-traffic floors
· Why robotics and automated warehouses are demanding flatter floors
· Where most grinding corrections occur on high-tolerance slabs
· Why slump consistency and placement rate matter more than exotic mix designs
· How laser scanning and real-time data could change floor flatness control in the future
CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction and episode overview
02:40 Early methods for measuring floor flatness
05:15 How superflat floors started in warehouse logistics
08:40 Measuring FF, FL, and F-min floors
12:00 The history of the F-number system
16:30 How superflat floors were built in the 1980s
22:00 Bump cutting and manual finishing methods
28:30 Profilographs and corrective grinding
31:00 High-tolerance random traffic floors
34:00 Laser screeds and float pans change the industry
37:00 Modern methods for producing flatter floors
39:00 Mix design considerations for superflat slabs
42:00 The future of floor flatness measurement
GUEST
Chad White
Structural Services Inc. (SSI)
https://www.concretelogicpodcast.com/guests/chad-white/
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CREDITS
Producers: Scott Reed, Jodi Tandett, Concrete Logic Media
Music by Mike Dunton
https://www.mdunton.com/
WHERE TO FIND SETH
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethtandett/
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Until next time, let’s keep it concrete!
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What's the most used man-made material on earth? I'll give you the answer. Concrete. This is the concrete logic podcast.
Have you ever stopped to think about the sidewalks, driveways, bridges or the buildings around you? They're all made from concrete.
So why don't we discuss it more? In each episode of Concrete Logic, we'll explore a unique concrete related topic with the help of industry professionals shaping the trade's future.
We'll talk with suppliers, contractors, architects, engineers, specialists, and even proponents of competing materials.
We'll get their views on concrete and their visions for its future. So get ready to mix things up with concrete logic where we turn the spotlight on the material that's everywhere but often overlooked.
This is the concrete logic podcast and now use your host Seth Tandet.
And welcome to another episode of the concrete logic podcast. And today I'm happy to have Chad White with SSI. He's back with us. You might remember him from episode 106 where we talked about best practices for placing and finishing concrete floors.
Chad's been in the concrete industry for over 40 years. He started offices cement Mason apprentice to run in his own company. And now he's a senior concrete consultant with SSI.
He's worked on defined traffic super flats, high tolerance random traffic floors suspended slabs and more. He's a not ACI member and long time world of concrete speaker.
Today we're going to talk about the evolution of the means and methods behind producing super flat floors. If you know we're going to revisit FFL and FF men requirements. That's a lot of F's.
They're there with all the automation that we're seeing these days. These these requirements are getting tighter. So we're going to get into that today. But before we get started, just want to remind everyone how you can support the show.
If you if you go to concrete logic podcast.com. And there's a couple things you can do for me. Well, I'm jumping ahead. First thing is, if you enjoy this episode or any other of the episodes, you learn something.
Please share it with a colleague or coworker. Second thing is going back to that website, www concrete logic podcast.com. There's a couple of ways that you can get a hold of me. And I actually changed something on the website.
If you look at the top now on the menu, it says there's a there's a on the menu, it says ask Seth. Click on ask Seth. And on that, you can fill out. It's like sending me an email, fill out that form and tell me what you want to hear or who you want to hear from.
Something you want to learn about. That's what that's for. Also, if you if you're more of a verbal person like myself, you know, sometimes I struggled to write. There's a microphone in the bottom right hand corner on the website. And you can click on that. And that's like leaving me a voicemail to the same thing.
You can tell me which one here, which one learn about this podcast is for you. And then the other thing you can do to help support the show is is make a donation. There's a donate button in the upper right hand corner.
So if you click on that donate button, you can give any amount to any amount is appreciated. And today, I want to thank Scott Reed with prologue from rich from in Virginia at Scott Reed.
This is going to be a perfect episode for you to support actually Scott introduced me to 3D scanning. It's got to be at least a decade ago. And this was before 3D scanning was really a thing. Help me out on a project that I was doing in Richmond.
So Scott's great guy. Thank you. Scott for supporting the show. So another way you can support the show. If you enjoy the content on here, make sure you check out the concrete logic academy.
There's again, if you're on the podcast website, there's a link to that. But it's the same kind of content. But we're going to quiz you. Make sure you understand what we're talking about. And then there's some other functions within the academy, the platform. So all right.
And with that chat, let's get let's get back into it. So we're going to talk about kind of the evolution of super flat floors. But what I guess just to get you warmed up for today, let's talk about when you first got started.
What was a high tolerance floor like back then?
Gosh, you know, I started in the business in 1974. At that time, the only way we really tested floor flatness was the 10 foot straight edge, a class A finish was an eighth in 10, which basically meant when you set this straight edge down the floor, if there was any gaps under the straight edge that was greater than an eighth.
That would not be a class A floor. And as if if you start thinking through putting a straight edge on the slab and random locations is pretty subjective. So we really did not know what we were getting on the floor.
And you got to remember this was before laser screens. This is before float pans. We first started working on super flats. We really had no idea what we were doing. It was almost like it was a magical thing. I mean, how do we get these numbers?
So with a lot of trial and error through the years, we came up with a system and really the first thing we start talking about super flats is, you know, the net term is thrown around a lot in the industry. Yeah, we're doing super flat floor this and that.
But what's it actually me an actual super flat on an F men, which is a defined path is F men 100.
So technically, if you're doing an F men 60, it's not a super flat, but we call them all super flats. And then on a random traffic floor, a super flat is considered anything that's an FFFL 40 or above, which with today's laser screens and pans and trial machines just about everybody can pour super flat.
So for the bait, what I consider a super flat for a random traffic would be when those numbers start getting up there when we're talking at FF, that's a super flat because to me, the differentiator is when you're doing super flat, you have to do more work to that slab surface.
And then you would do just placing a conventional slab, a little bit of the history on super flats, you know, they first came into being into 70s.
And it was driven by narrow aisle high bay racking system and what they had the tow tow motor, the pork lift, whatever you want to call it.
They would cut us a saw cut the slab, they would put up a wire and that's what guides it. And then what brought about the tolerance issues was you've got
a warehousing racking that's now instead of the 35 40 feet high, you're going 60 80 up to 100 feet tall.
So think about it. If you've got a forklift, it's got a footprint of six foot.
It's booming up in the air 80 feet. If you're out a quarter inch, what's that doing to your mast up there?
So if the floor is not at a flat enough, you're not going to be able to safely pick your stuff up there.
It's been a long time since I've done trigonometry, but I don't know how far you'd be out.
You'd be out quite a bit.
So that's what started driving it. And it was just people, the warehousing logistics industry, they needed to get
flatter floors so they can go higher. And then on your high tolerance super flat random traffic, initially about the only demand for it was like television studios or movie making to where they're rolling a camera along.
Well, if you've got a wavy or bumpy surface, you're going to see that in the filming that it's doing.
So the first high tolerance super flat for a random traffic were usually TV studios.
But now we're seeing robotics. Robotics is pushing a lot of the high tolerance random traffic super flats.
Because the robots have to travel everywhere in a random path.
And if the floor is not flat, they have issues with maintaining their load and moving and everything.
So that has become a lot of it.
The other for a random traffic that's would be ice rinks, roller skating rinks, gymnasium floors, stuff like that.
Plus it's the nature of the beast, you know, for years and years, a conventional slab of 3525 was about as good as we could do on a day-to-day basis.
Well, as they've improved the laser screens and the pan floats.
Now my expectation if I walk out onto a conventional job and they're using a laser screen and they're using pans, you know, you're going to hit a 6040.
Just doing normal stuff, you know, how are we measuring that?
Let's talk a little bit about how we're measuring these numbers that you're sharing an F-min floor, which is what they call a defined traffic.
That's measured with a profile graph.
And what that does, that profile graph is set up where it's set up on the wheelbase of the truck motor that's going to be used.
And then it's a it rolls along on the truck motors are going to run on the same path all the time.
They don't deviate at all.
So they run this profile a graph along and it actually records exactly the waviness of the floor, what a high lows.
And it's actually it pops out a printed graph where you can go back and you can exactly identify where you've got a high spot or a low spot and needs to be corrected.
Unfortunately, that's always done after the work is done. So it's corrected grinding to get it in tolerance from that standpoint.
But future, I think we're going to see some changes on that.
Then on high tolerance random traffic slabs, they use a profile earth.
Your typical ones are a dipstick, an axiom, a demeter, an F meter.
And these are basically they give you a point to point, let you know what the variation is over one foot.
And as you know, on FL is your measurements over 10 foot, how much deviation and your FF is over one foot, you know, how much waviness.
So you can have a floor that is level, but the surface is bumpy.
So the FL may be very high, but the FF will be low.
Then you can also have a floor that's tilted. So it's not level, but it can be perfectly flat. So you could have very high FF numbers.
So those are the tools that are used at a little history. Like I said, we started in the seventies.
I'm looking at my notes here a little bit. The first, the F number system, which was developed by face companies, was first used in 1983.
That was, that's, if you really think about it, it's not that long ago.
No, not at all. At least at least for some of us.
The ACI standardized F number system was officially per ACI 317 was 1990.
So we did not get rid of the 10 foot, you know, straight edge method, gap method, officially until 1990.
I've had people on here on the podcast. I wanted to bring the straight edge back.
Good lord. I don't know why.
I mean, back when I was a, a finished reform and working in the field, you know, you could get with a client.
And they could go and check a floor. And I'm, I guarantee you, I can find a bad spot in any floor.
You know, that will not make the eighth and 10.
Actually, to make a true eighth and 10, you're probably looking at F, F numbers of 75 or 80 and F L's of 50 or above.
Just a little history that my personal knowledge, I've went back and surveyed some, I went back when I was a contractor.
And I had 10 slabs that had tested all of them above an FF 60 F L 40.
So I wanted to find out, okay, well, how much?
What's the envelope for that slab?
And we measured 10 slabs that we had done that we knew were 60 40 or above.
And the average envelope was three quarters of an inch from the high to the low on that slab placement.
So we're not as flat as we think we are.
Laser scanning is beginning to show us a lot of that that, you know, we're not as flat as we thought we were.
Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you is, is, are we getting better at measuring or are we getting better at finishing?
Well, one, if we do one, the other follows.
If we get better at measuring, the more data we have, the more we can improve.
Yeah.
Kind of getting off track here, but I read an article as a contractor in Japan.
And I don't have the article I wish because I'd love to credit them.
They were doing a ice skating racing oval.
And had to be extremely flat.
They combination of using a trust screen with laser sensors on it set up every two and a half feet.
And real time laser scanning of the floor to where they literally had a projector mounted up on a crane to where they could scan that floor.
And then they were showing a different color anything that was out of tolerance.
That's cool to where they could literally go out there and scrape it or fill it.
They ended up doing that and they got that within two millimeters.
Well, beyond the load on that slab, it projected the color on there. Did they look on a screen?
No, it projected the color on the slab.
I'll send the article to you if I find it was amazing.
Now, what did it cost to do this? It was probably very expensive.
But somebody paid for it.
The ability is there.
To where, you know, if you can get a slab, two millimeters, the envelope from high to low, you know, that's just phenomenal to me.
You know, you can do that.
But getting on the other things, the other high tolerance random traffic is your automated rack storage and retrieval systems that you're seeing being built now.
And most of those, there is no forklifts running in the aisles.
All the retrieving it's up on a, you know, runs right off the racking, but they want those floors to be as flat as they possibly can.
Because there may be going 120 feet in the air and they don't want to shim anything.
You know, or keep the shimming to a minimum because the more you have to shim racks, the less stable they are.
So you're seeing a big push. Robotics is pushing more flatness in the floors and these automated storage and retrieval systems are requiring the floors to be much flatter.
Now, talking about some of our legacy ways of how we did a super flat back in the day, which some of it hasn't changed a lot.
But like, let me walk you through a typical F men 1985.
We knew we tried to, that's when I worked, I worked with Baker at one time.
I worked with Jessica, I worked with Calvin, you know, different people.
But everyone's pretty much the same.
The formwork, you had to get the formwork exact because the only way that you could strike off the concrete was with a trust type screen, which went from point to point.
So even though your construction joints are under the racks and don't have to be flat, you had to get them exact so that the rest of your floor could be exact.
So there was a lot of different things, people tried using bar stock attached to a wood form and then you let just it up and down and this and that.
And it worked, but it was hard to keep it uniform over 300 feet or whatever.
Yeah, was there a maximum width to your lane that you could do at a time?
Yeah, typically at that time, everything was one aisle, we did one aisle at a time.
So in order to get under the racks, you were anywhere from 11 feet to 14 foot wide.
So you know, your porn strips that are 200, 300 feet long and say, I would say if I had to be, give you a typical would be like 12 feet, 12 feet wide.
So you're setting up all these strips and we would use wood forms and this is when we first started beveling forms, you know, where you cut the top on an angle so that you're just finishing to a point.
That's when we first started to it and we, you know, we'd set up a jig and you'd always cut the grain.
A piece of wood has a grain in it like this.
Well, you always wanted to till it to make certain that you're cutting the top of the grain so that the form would relax.
So if you cut the other way, it's just going to warp.
So we would cut all our forms on a jig, then you would set them up, stake them securely, you know, at your joints on your form work, then we would take a 12 foot straight edge.
And we would go down and at every joint in the forms, we would slide that across the top of it.
Well, if it was high at any spot, that would leave a black mark.
So then we would take a hand planer, you know, a power planer and literally plane the surface of it to try to get that form as level as we could all the way down.
Very exacting, very exacting.
So can you compare that to what we do now? What do we do now?
Biggest difference we're doing now is we've learned to use laser screens to do super flats.
So discrete because we're doing all this work on the forms, which doesn't mean we're only think what's going to get measured is four foot wide in the middle of that 12 foot.
But we had to have the forms perfect because of the way we had to strike it off.
Now we're using laser screens, which is a wet screening process that matter what the forms are.
So now when we go in to set up a F men job, we'll use laser screens on each side.
And it doesn't matter what the forms are. I mean, he's still got to be within an eighth of an inch, but it doesn't have it does not have that has no bearing on what your tolerances are in your Iowa.
So it saved a lot of work on the form work, a lot of work.
So now we got the forms all set and there's there's various reinforcing systems.
I'm not going to get into all that because we're just talking about means and methods here, but you know, most of these slabs F men slabs are not saw.
They're designed to crack wherever they'll crack so they're heavily reinforced with either fibers or reinforcing or post tension back when we first started a lot of more post tension.
So you'll see various reinforcing strategies, but okay, we got the forms set.
Now we're going to poor concrete and the difference with a super flat is you take everything one step further like we're talking when we're pouring conventional slabs.
I like to see the slumps on the trucks.
You know, no more from a truck to truck or over the course of the placement, do I want to see more than a two inch variance.
So if you're trying to pour to five, you know, if you can keep everything between a four and a six, you know, that's pretty good.
On a super flat, we were looking for one inch variance in slow.
You know, I don't want if we're trying to pour to five, I'll pour six, but I'm not going to pour four right behind.
I might pour five. So every truck, we tried truck to truck to keep everything and you end up rejecting a lot of concrete.
And you end up, it slows you down, you're testing a lot more.
I've had a lot of super flats to where we first start pouring them. We're slumping every truck on a 300 and you're not pouring a thousand yards of super flat out of time.
You know, you're pouring 253 hundred yards, but we're slumping every truck.
If it doesn't hit those parameters, we're rejecting it or tempering it or whatever.
So productivity levels go down. You need a lot more people.
It's common method back then and still is for doing narrow aisle placements is using a vibratory trust street where your initial strike off.
So we place our concrete, crank up the trust screen and bring it down.
And then while we're doing this, you've got two carpenters on each side checking the forms as the concrete is placed using wedges.
To make certain everything is dead on and we shoot everything with an optical, you don't use a laser with high tolerance.
There's just too much variance in the band. So our recommendation is always use an optical, you know, a builder's level to shoot everything in so you know exactly how much you're higher low.
And then after you strike it off, then we would use a typically a two by five, a big heavy magnesium or aluminum straight edge longer than the width of the poor.
And we would run that behind the trust screen and you used it in a sea sawing motion to where you're sawing the top to where you're trying to get all of that excess off and get it down just as tight as you can get it.
Very labor intensive and guys that did that on a regular basis had arms about like that, you know, from doing that all the time.
So now you've got it finally, you've got it struck off. Well, then you would start your bump cutting, which I bump cutter is basically the simplest way.
It's a straight edge with a handle are bump cutters and check rods. They came from highway work originally.
That's where your check rods they would run those behind pavers why they were called a check rod and that a check rods when you lay the straight edge flat.
A bump cutters when you raise it put it up vertical.
So like in the paving operation, they would run a check rod out and then pull it back and see if there's any highs or lows.
Then you could use a bump cutter to scrape the floor. So you would scrape the floor and that's a two man operation.
One guy is pushing the bump cutter to straight edge out, which is basically a bull float handles and a hustler type head or, you know, pushing it out and then he would make his first cut to where he's holding it straight up or even cock backwards to where he's dragging that back.
So that will show any low spots because you'll see the light under it and any high spots you're going to cut them off, which if it's too far out, I mean, you're going, you're cutting into aggregate.
And as he pulls that to the side, well, that slurry that paste second guy has got a shovel.
And as he pushes it back out, he throws that out to fill the low spots and you'll bring it over it again.
A typical super flat, you would bump cut it at least three times, oftentimes four or five.
Once or twice before you started your float operations and we always use walk behinds back then we didn't have the nice double trials like we do now.
So we used walk behind trials with float shoes on them.
And when you do your machining on an F men floor, you don't, you know, it's typical to machine the first time in the opposite direction of the straight edge and then each time you go in an opposite direction to keep it flat.
Well, doing an F men, you don't do that.
You run everything long ways.
You don't cross anything up because I don't care if the whole slabs flat.
I just want that aisle where those wheel tracks are.
That's what has to be flat.
So I machine in everything in one direction all the time.
And that goes from my floating operations to my trailing operations all the way through.
I never turned the machine the other direction.
Everything runs to one direction.
And then what we would do after we had pan floated, we would take a straight edge, you know, straight edges are hollow.
I don't know if you know that they got in caps in them.
Well, we would take four or five number five rebar.
Put them inside the straight edge where that straight edge weighed about 50 pounds.
And that would be our last pass over the floor would be with a bump cutter, a 50 pound bump cutter pulling it across to scrape that last little bit.
Then we would finish it like you would finish a normal slab.
You know, do you want to see my glossy hard trial finish?
So now you're done.
So then they come in and testing agency with your profile graph, which is set up.
It's got wheels on it.
It's set in the exact way the truck motor is.
They'll set a string line to where it shows the center of the aisle.
They position the machine.
Then they'll run the machine down to test you.
And as they're running the test, like say, it's got a little graph that's actually printing out.
They'll make the run pull it through and they've got a band on there of what.
So everything ideally stays within that band anything that's out of the band has to be corrected.
And typically on an F men job, you are allowed corrective grinding for five percent of the aisle link.
So if you pour to 100 foot of aisle, you can correctively grind five foot of the aisle and still be within specification.
We always shot for three percent ourselves.
And yes, can you do an F men 100 super flat and no grind?
Yes, it happens.
But I don't know of any job to where they've done multiple pours or placements where they did not do any grinding.
The best floors I've ever done we had to do some corrective grinding on.
So then, like I say, he's got the graph, he's identified the areas that they'll go back and mark them.
You know, between this point and this point, you know, you're out three mills.
You're out six mills or whatever.
And then you're allowed to correctively grind in that area to get your floor.
And the biggest problem with super flats is the same with all concrete just because you measured it and ground it on day one through day seven.
There's no guarantee at day three sixty five that that floor is still the same.
You know, the floor moves, it curls.
So that's where your different reinforcing strategies came in, you know, to try to mitigate the shrinkage and curl on a slab.
But unfortunately, we haven't been able to get through that all the way.
What time frame do you usually see where you do a corrective action like a grind?
Typically, when you're doing this, you want to do the grinding before the slab's cured, before the slab's too damn hard.
Because that's about all you can ask of a concrete contractor.
I put it in per your specifications.
You know, what it is six months from now?
That's something else that's going to be dealt with.
I can't control that part of it, you know.
So, yeah.
And that's why you're seeing a lot today.
There's a lot of, you know, are in the United States, everything is spec warehousing.
So they may have a warehouse that, you know, was built to 50, 35 standards and they want to come in and do a narrow aisle, high bay thing.
So they'll come in and do corrective grinding over the whole floor every aisle, you know.
So that can get very expensive.
Then, when it came to high tolerance random traffic floors, initially we first started out, it kept the placements very narrow.
Anything that you could reach from one side or the other with your bump cutters, that was what the limiting factor.
So you very seldom got over a half a bay wide because you could not get, could not reach it with a manual bump cover.
And do it effectively without getting out on the floor.
What we would do is, you know, the same tolerances on slump, temperature set.
And then we would extensively bump, you know, at the beginning, you know, we were still using trust screens.
Laser screens didn't really come around to like 1986.
I think 85, 86, I actually looked it up as to win.
I think, oh, 86, yeah.
Okay.
So before that, we were using trust screens.
Then we were just bump cut it, bump cut it, bump cut it, and that's where we sat.
So super flats were very labor, are very labor intensive, even to this day.
It's not as much as it was, but they're still very labor intensive.
And you still have the conundrum that, you know, we're going to place it to these specifications today.
But six months from now, it may not be there.
But this is the best we can do right now, try and think that was really about it back in the day.
Now, though, we're seeing some innovation in the market.
And the biggest things, the two biggest innovations that have probably increased our ability to get flat floors,
number one is the laser screen.
When they came out in 86, that opened up to where now we could do high tolerance,
random traffic slabs that were 50 feet wide, that were 100 feet wide, that were 150 feet wide,
because, you know, it was all wet screening.
And are the initial laser screens that came out, they were good, but they were nothing like they are now.
Back in the day, and it makes me sound old when I say back in the day,
but when the laser screens first came out, we could hit the 50, 35 numbers pretty consistently,
but we had to bump cut it one time.
Now, you know, as I said earlier, my expectation is a 60, 40 and not doing anything other than normal conventional finishing.
And the big difference is the laser screens.
Laser screens have gotten so much better, the hydraulics, the laser systems,
they can really get you a flat floor.
And the second innovation that has really changed our industry is float pans.
And I believe Allen engineering was the originator of the float pans, and that was in 1989.
So it hasn't been that's 35 years ago.
But that increased our FF numbers from using float shoes tremendously, tremendously.
So those are the two big things that have changed how we approach high tolerance super flat floors.
And then since that time, we've had a couple of other things that are coming on the market that have really helped the bump cutting.
Like I said, manual bump cutting is very labor intensive.
There's a safety issue to it.
There's a lot of back strains, a lot of hemorrhoids.
You know, because you're pulling jerk and it's it's bad on your body.
It's just bad on your body.
So over the last 15, 20 years, people have experimented with different bump cutting attachments that are either mounted on a track.
Mounted on a trailing machine or pulled behind a trailing machine.
And we've got that they've improved that quite a bit to where, you know, you've got.
We can now probably using a bump cutter attachment on a pan machine.
We can increase the FF numbers probably about 20, 25%.
Yeah, it's just dragging, dragging it behind the machine.
And it's caveman technology.
It's it's doing the same thing as a manual bump cutter.
But where I was talking earlier that maybe we would bump cut manually three times.
Very labor intensive.
Now using a screed sled, a bump cutter attachment behind your trial machine.
You're bump cutting the floor 10, 15 times.
You know, machine don't get tired.
You know, unless it runs out of fuel, it'll keep going.
So that's really improved that aspect of it.
Yeah.
Another thing we're seeing is flat pan.
We're seeing dedicated panning machines.
You're seeing several of the large manufacturers have come out with dedicated pan machines.
And then you're also seeing aftermarket where you can change the arms out to where they spread that weight of the trial machine more equally on the float pans.
So you have greater contact with the floor with the float plan.
So we're getting flatter floors using those systems.
I think it don't don't quote me on it.
But I think they say a typical pan with the trial arms.
You got about a 40% contact with the slab surface of the pan to where when you use all the one I can think of off hand is the big foot pan safer system.
They spread that out and they say they're getting about 70% contact.
So the more contact you get, the flatter the floor is laser screens.
We've learned to use them much better.
We found that you we talked earlier about we would strike it off with the trust screen and then run the seesaw behind it.
Now what I'm seeing when we do super flats, we will double strike or even strike the slab three times with the laser street head to get the floor flatter.
And we've also learned the big thing on the F men's that we've that's really done some cost saving and allow us to make larger placements is we're using two laser screens one on each side of the poor.
And they're booming out like say we're pouring an F men when I was talking earlier 12 to 15 feet.
Now we're pouring up to 35 feet wide and we're pouring 2 to 4 miles at a time using the screen on each side they're booming out to the center.
And speeding the slab back on each side.
Yeah.
And we'll have them screen it three times they'll go back screen it.
Screen it again what I always like and I like to see them what I tell them is you know the auger on a laser screen is what.
Is doing your strike off so I tell the guys when I'm training and working with them that I want to I want you to screen that floor to where I see nothing coming off at auger.
You know I don't want anything coming off of it we've got that floors flat as we can now.
And with the better laser screens the better hydraulics we have now we're getting some really good numbers and now the edge forms it doesn't matter.
You know because they're not dictating the elevation of the floor so we don't have to be as critical don't have to spend as much time on the formwork.
So there's a cost savings here plus we can go wider.
So that has been a huge benefit what about design as far as the concrete itself are we getting better at that is that making it easier as well.
Well concrete has always been a compromise we can do a lot of different things if you do this to bump cut a floor as much you know the straightening and restraining of a slab surface.
You got to have paste you got so how do you get paste you got to have cement.
So you raise the cement so what happens when you raise the cement you've increased the shrinkage potential.
Of the floor you've increased the possibilities of delamination or peeling or whatever so you have to design a mix that.
How well it's kind of you don't make everybody happy you don't hit all of them but you try to do the best you can.
So you know you got to have enough paste where you can finish the floor after you've scraped at numerous times you've got to have lead water.
You've got to you know as an old finisher you know no back in the day we fought excessive lead water.
And most of that was because we had gap graded aggregates in our concrete.
So you had all the channels for the water to go up now we've optimized the aggregates so much better where we've got a much more cohesive blend of concrete but it comes down to it's not.
Exotic mix designs it's the discipline to execute the same truck the truck the truck the truck yeah you know getting the slump that the biggest thing is.
Probably is the consistency of the slump and the rate of placement because every time I've seen grinding on a typical high tolerance floor it's where you start and stop.
It's off your where you started this poor.
And if you had to stop for some reason and start again and then when you get to the end of the poor if I had to pick some place to where I yeah that's where you're going to have issues those are where they're at.
So you want to you want to make a factory job out of it yeah it's very difficult to do high tolerance floors outside.
Unprotected in the elements it can be done and it is done on a daily basis but it's difficult.
As I've said on any concrete you want to control the variables and eliminate as many of them as you can so ideally when you're doing a high tolerance floors you want a controlled environment.
You want the same weather every day you want the same concrete every day you want the same temperatures you don't want variation.
That way you can figure out what works.
And you can do it consistently repeatedly every day so it's the distance it's the execution.
It's you know it's I've said a thousand times attention to detail well the details matter a lot more on a high tolerance slab.
Going forward the future I think what you're going to see is laser scanning we're going to have the more data and information you can furnish in real time the better job you can do.
And our ability to collect data is improving all the time laser scanning you know we're starting to see some of it.
You know they'll come out now laser scan while you're poor and part of the problem is you can only do sections at a time.
But we're going to get past that in some way to where you're going to be able to give information to those crew leaders on the job hey we're out of tolerance right there and they can fix it in real time versus doing it grinding it after the fact.
So I think going forward I don't I can't think of any new or exotic technology that's on horizon that's going to dramatically change how we do high tolerance floors.
But I do think our ability to gather data in real time is what's going to push us forward so you're going to be able to.
If they can get data to you to where you can make corrections now we're not confined by configurations of narrow aisles you know we can make placements of various configurations and still get the same flatness so and I think that's what we're seeing coming in the future though.
And that's pretty much where we're at right now with the high tolerance floors of the F men defined path that's always going to be a little bit of a niche market.
But the high tolerance random traffic floors we're going to see an explosion in that and robotics and the automated rack storage system is what's driving that plus we have the ability to do it without a tremendous additional cost people are always going to walk flatter floors the flatter the floor is the easier it is to work off of it.
Yeah gives gives the building more versatility and what it can be exactly exactly any other questions on no I mean I think you covered everything that we were thinking we were going to cover today okay so I appreciate it always glad to have you on the show folks want to reach out to you or SSI was the best way.
Probably the best way is either at our website SSI dot com or I can be reached that C white at SSI team dot com and yeah give us a call we'd be happy to talk to you.
Yeah more have chats link in the show notes so you know how to get a hold of them and if you will have his own he already has his own page since he's been on the podcast before but if you go to podcast website chat got his own page so you can go and find his link there as well I appreciate you coming on the show today glad to catch up with you sir great.
And folks until next time let's keep it concrete thanks for joining us for another episode of the concrete logic podcast if you got value from the show here's how you can provide value back to support the show visit concrete logic podcast dot com and click the donate button to send value back all dollar amounts are truly appreciate.
And now to close out the show here's Mike.
We're getting over time while the time they're tired for the night to fly.
We're out here changing these skylines with what I heard in my we work hard for call again thanks to the Lord above.
Now I'm like a man do something you can't prove hard work calls for a drinker to expect more.
I heard it from the swan city from the long star heat to the woods of the Georgia.
And if you want to see the fire in a row man's eyes.
While not boys caught the days and that's working hard to get that job done.
We work hard for a dollar give thanks to the Lord above.
The color of the colors ain't white or blue we're all gray color through and through expect more it's really not blood.
With what I heard in my we work hard for call again thanks to the Lord above.
With what I heard in my we work hard for call again thanks to the Lord above.
Now I'm like a man do something you can't prove hard work calls for a drinker to expect more.
It's really not blood with what I heard in my we work hard for call again thanks to the Lord above.
Now I'm like a man do something you can't prove hard work calls for a drinker to expect more.
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