The Conco Companies have recently opened a new office in Portland, OR. While not new to the area as we have performed services for Portland from our facilities in Kent, WA, this is our first actual office in the city. The need for the office made sense as we are working on several large projects throughout the city and having a more established presence allows us to better serve our current clients as well as future clients.
One of our new projects is the Modera Glisan, a 12-story mixed-use high-rise that will offer 291 residential units on the upper floors and retail and commercial space at ground level. The project also includes an underground parking garage for approximately 223 vehicles and parking for 445 bicycles. The exterior will be comprised of granite colored brick, metal panels in two colors, glass balcony railings and aluminum storefronts. Conco will be responsible for providing concrete pumping, reinforcement, formwork, finishing, shotcrete, formwork, and construction trucking. As the job requires an aggressive schedule, we will need to use multiple placing booms. Another one of our new Portland project is 14 & Glisan, a 16-story high-rise that when finished will have 230 residential units and approximately 4,285 square feet of ground floor retail space. The tower’s exterior includes pre-cast concrete panels, brick veneer, aluminum storefront glazing and a unitized window/wall system. It will also have three levels of below grade parking to accomodate 201 vehicles. Conco’s duties include concrete pumping, reinforcement, formwork, shotcrete, and finishing as well as construction trucking services. During the course of the project, we will place 16,000 cubic yards of concrete and expect the job to take us approximately 10 months. The Conco Companies are one of the foremost suppliers of concrete services for the Western U.S. We got our start in 1959 in the Bay Area by offering clients the best value on a broad range of concrete services and products. Since that time, we have taken a leading role as top concrete contractors in the region. We have regional offices serving California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and Washington.
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As one of the nation’s leading commercial concrete contractors, The Conco Companies have undertaken many challenging jobs placing concrete over our nearly 60 years in the industry. We attributed our success to our seasoned team of professional engineers, managers, pump operators, and finishing crews as well as to our large fleet of state-of-the-art concrete pumps.
We know that many projects Conco has been a part of, and in fact a large majority of structures built since WWII, would not have been possible without the use of concrete pumps. Before pumps, cranes were used to lift large buckets known as skips to move the concrete where it was needed. Since a bucket could only hold around 2 cubic yards of concrete, it was a time-consuming, labor-intensive job. Although records indicate that the first patent for a concrete pump was applied for in 1913 by C. A. Cornell and S. A. McKee, they did not do much with it. After unsuccessfully attempting to lift concrete to the top of a German war memorial in 1927, engineer Fritz Hell began working on a pump that would handle that type of job. By 1930, the Rexnord Company in Milwaukee, WI introduced the Pumpcrete, invented by C. W. LeValley. Following WWII, Germans and other Europeans made a number of innovations to the pump’s design in order to meet the demand for more sophisticated equipment during the reconstruction period. The first hydraulic pump was developed by the Torket Company of Germany in the 1950s and operated with water. The EverythingaboutEquipment website explains that by 1957, “the Schwing Company manufactured a fully hydraulic double-cylinder pump that used an oil-operated ram with a water-flushed cylinder.” During the 1980s and 90s, many of the largest manufacturers of concrete pumps were either German or Japanese. The Conco Companies are a leading supplier of concrete services for the Western U.S. We got our start in the Bay Area in 1959 by offering clients the best value on a wide range of concrete services and products. Since that time, we have taken a leading role as one of the top concrete contractors in the region. We have four regional offices serving California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Colorado. Sources: ritchiewiki.com/wiki/index.php/Concrete_Pump concretepumping.com/dictionary/index.php/The_PumpCrete_by_Rexnord_or_Chain_Belt_is_believed_to_be_the_worlds_first_Concrete_Pump_1930 One of The Conco Companies most impressive projects over the last few years was providing concrete services on the Wilshire Grand Center in downtown L.A. Now after four years of construction, the 73-story tower officially opened on June 23, 2017. Costing $1.35 billion, the 1,100 ft. tall skyscraper is the tallest building west of the Mississippi. The opening ceremony for the skyscraper included local dignitaries and politicians as well as the owners of the building, Korean Air.
In addition to its towering height, the Wilshire’s slanted peaked roofline, referred to as the “sail,” stands out among the flat roof tops of the surrounding buildings. The design was instrumental in changing L.A.’s code that had required skyscrapers to have a flat roof to accommodate a helicopter in case of an emergency. In fact it is the first high-rise without a flat roof since the L.A. City Hall was built in 1928. According to the project’s lead architect, Chris Martin of AC Martin Partners, the “sail” design is based on a massive granite formation in Yosemite Valley called the Half Dome. The Wilshire is pretty spectacular at night also as the roof is lit up with rainbow-colored LED lights that can be seen for miles and will be used to project images onto the building’s face for special events. The tower also is home to the city’s highest open-air bar, and has a top floor deck that offers 360-degree views of the city. Another impressive feature is the skylight in the tower’s first-floor entrance. Comprised of “a steel cage wrapped in 475 glass panels,” Chris Martin says it was inspired by the Merced River that runs through Yosemite. It is reported that 950 people worked on the project every day. For the world’s largest continuous mat pour, Conco poured 21,200 cubic yards of concrete. By the end of the pour, we had completed a foundation that is nearly 20 ft. thick. At The Conco Companies, we are one of the leading concrete contractors in the Western U.S. and offer a wide range of quality services and products. Our experience includes providing services for commercial, educational, parking and other construction development as well as public works projects. We serve California, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. Source: la.curbed.com/2017/6/23/15860186/wilshire-grand-tower-los-angeles-opening The Conco Companies provide a wide range of concrete services including concrete reinforcement for all of your rebar fabrication and installation needs. By owning and operating two large rebar fabrication facilities in California and Washington, we have the capacity to cost-effectively serve our customers’ needs saving them both time and money. Also Conco’s highly skilled crews are trained on the specialized tools used to fabricate, assemble, and install the rebar.
One example of a current job that we are providing a wide range of concrete services for including reinforcement is 970 Denny Way in the South Lake Union neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. Along with the 4,900 cubic yards of concrete we poured to form the 15,300 square foot mat foundation, we also provided the required 1.3 million pounds of rebar. Another recent project that took advantage of Conco Reinforcing’s services was a parking structure for the new Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, CA. Our crews constructed two levels below grade, one level at grade and two levels above grade to total the approximately 397,359 square feet parking structure. To complete the project, we supplied 4.2 million pounds of reinforcing steel as well as 17,000 cubic yards of concrete and 1,200 cubic yards of shotcrete. The VA Mental Health and Research Center that is currently under construction in Seattle is a prime example of the benefit of using Conco’s full range of concrete services. On this particular project our job duties included concrete pumping, formwork, place and finish and shotcrete services on the 203,000 square foot structure as well as supplying and installing the reinforcement. When you take advantage of Conco’s unique ability to supply rebar and formwork on your next project, it eliminates the need for coordination between different suppliers. It also helps to ensure you meet timelines and stay on budget. Conco’s mission is to be the best supplier of concrete services in the Western United States and to bring expertise, experience and quality to each project. We continue to upgrade and expand facilities to better serve the growing market for public works projects, commercial, parking structures, educational, and other construction development. We serve California, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. At The Conco Companies, our shotcrete services provide an excellent alternative to traditional cast-in-place walls. Since shotcrete is pneumatically placed, it virtually eliminates the forming process, saving time and money, while still offering the same structural characteristics as traditional concrete methods. It is used for a wide range of applications including retaining walls, shear walls, and architectural walls as well as soil nailing and slope pavement.
An example of a project that Conco provided cost-effective shotcrete solutions for was the Mark, a 48-story high-rise tower in Seattle, WA. The 528,000 sq. ft. building consists of Class A+ office space and the luxurious 189-room SLS Hotel and Spa. In addition to the 5,000 cubic yard mat foundation pour we did that required almost 500 truckloads of concrete, the project included a sub-level parking structure with shotcrete perimeter walls and a concrete elevator core. A few years ago we also served as the General Contractor on a design-build parking structure for the Brio apartment complex in Walnut Creek, CA. The project included the construction of a five-story; cast-in-place parking structure with stalls for 471 vehicles and chargers for electric vehicles. To complete the project we placed 159,028 square feet of concrete, 750,000 lbs. of reinforced steel, and 1,500 cubic yards of shotcrete. Another type of shotcrete project we worked on was the Enfrente Pathway, a 0.6-mile, multi-use trail that provided a critical link to central and south Novato. Soil nails were installed to retain the hillside and we applied sculpted shotcrete as a finish over the walls. Depending on the type of application, a shotcrete mix can be customized with additives or admixtures. For instance when silica fume is added, it reduces permeability, increases the compressive and flexural strength, and offers better resistance to alkali and chemical attacks. To improved pumpability and adhesion in wet-process shotcrete and for freeze-thaw durability, air-entraining admixtures can be added to the shotcrete. To control cracking and improve impact resistance, different fibers are used or accelerators are added to improve placement characteristics in adverse conditions or increase production capabilities. The Conco Companies’ mission is to be the best supplier of concrete services in the Western United States and to bring expertise, experience and quality to each project. We continue to upgrade and expand facilities to better serve the growing market for public works projects, commercial, parking structures, educational, and other construction development. We serve California, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. As one of the leading commercial concrete contractors in the nation, The Conco Companies provide the Western United States with a wide range of concrete services including producing and placing cellular concrete. Also known as foam concrete, cellular concrete provides customers with one of the most productive, cost-effective solutions in a variety of applications.
Our proprietary cellular concrete product is Confoam™, and is a lightweight, low-density fill material that we customize for each specific job. In addition we have the specialized production equipment and experienced crews that know how to expertly place the highly flowable material for optimal results. While lightweight concrete is typically a concrete made with aggregates lighter than typical stone aggregates and has a density + 120 lb. / cu.ft., cellular concrete uses the internal air cell structure instead of an aggregate and exhibits densities from 20 to 90 lb. / cu. ft. Our cement-based slurry contains a high percentage of foam entrained into the plastic mortar and offers a perfect solution for filling challenging voids underneath slabs and tight, unstable trenches. Also Confoam has a fairly low carbon footprint that makes it “greener” than traditional concretes. Another advantage of using Conco’s foam concrete is that it is self-compacting, and thus eliminates the need for mechanical compaction, which means there is no impact on retaining structures or deep foundations. Furthermore, cellular concrete can be produced to be lighter in weight than the site’s compacted base materials or native soils, and as such, provides an inexpensive solution for foundations. This also means there is virtually no settlement as Confoam can be produced to make the combined weight of the new structure less than or equal to the weight of the removed soil. And perhaps most importantly, placing cellular concrete is safer than traditional fill methods as it does not require employees to be placed in the excavation area. Cellular concrete is just one solution The Conco Companies offer customers to help save time and money. Please visit our website or contact us to learn more about how we can help to get your next project off to a great start. At The Conco Companies, we are one of the leading concrete contractors in the Western U.S. and offer a wide range of quality services and products. Our experience includes providing services for commercial, educational, parking and other construction development as well as public works projects. We serve California, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. We are proud to announce that a project The Conco Companies provided concrete services for has won another award. The LA Federal Courthouse in downtown LA was recently recognized as a “Gold Winner” in the category for Best Sustainable Project by the LA Business Journal‘s Commercial Real Estate Awards. Last year the Courthouse also won the “2016 Outstanding Achievement and Excellence in Concrete Construction” award presented by the Southern California ACI chapter. In addition the project was selected to compete at the national level at the 2017 ACI National Convention.
Referred to as the “Cube” for its unique cantilevered shape, the 631,000 sq. ft. courthouse was designed and built to earn LEED Platinum certification. The general contractor on the $350 million project was Clark Construction and the architect was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The building’s high efficiency systems include a 1,200-ton central utility plant with a 130-ton heat recovery chiller. It also features a 250 KW roof-mounted photovoltaic array of solar panels. A large skylight brings in natural light and the building’s exterior has “pleats” that maximize daylight penetration and minimizes solar thermal gains. The building’s innovative design allows the cubic volume to “float” over the stone base and is considered to be one of the safest structures against bomb threats or earthquakes. The 10-story Courthouse sits on a 3.6-acre site and includes 24 courtrooms and 32 chambers for judges along with jury assembly facilities and offices for U.S. Marshals. SOM describes the Courthouse design as “using traditional architectural elements such as processional steps, grand public spaces, and enduring materials like limestone to achieve a strong civic identity.” The project broke ground in 2013 and judges and staff started moving into their new offices in September, 2016. The Conco Companies are a leading supplier of concrete services for the Western U.S. We got our start in the Bay Area in 1959 by offering clients the best value on a wide range of concrete services and products. Since that time, we have taken a leading role as one of the top concrete contractors in the region. We have four regional offices serving California, Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Colorado. The Ten Thousand, a luxurious apartment building in Century City that borders Beverly Hills, was recently recognized as a “Gold Winner” in the category of the Best Multi-family Project from the LA Business Journal‘s Commercial Real Estate Awards. The Conco Companies were honored to provide concrete services on the 40-story, 483-foot residential tower, which is quickly becoming one of the area’s iconic architectural landmarks. The developer as well as owner of the $300 million project is Crescent Heights. The architect is Handel Architects and Shamir Shah Design the interior designer. Swinerton Builders is the general contractor.
Handel Architects explains that the modern all-glass structure was inspired by the work of 20th-century modernists. The exterior is composed of four crystalline quadrants and the sloping roofline stands out in sharp contrast to the surrounding flat-roofed buildings. The façade’s multiple panes of glass are slightly angled away from one another to refract sunlight during the day and transform the tower into an illuminated beacon at night. Ten Thousand received LEED Gold certification and creates a sustainable living environment. Offering two and three bedroom residences, each unit has floor-to-ceiling windows and unobstructed site lines that provide panoramic views that span all the way from downtown Los Angeles, to the Hollywood Hills, and the Pacific Ocean. The building’s lobby and residences feature natural finishes such as titanium travertine from Italy, statuary marble, limestone, grained walnut, and cerused oak. The building also has an on-site garage with a discreet private entrance to the building and 75,000 sq. ft. of indoor and outdoor amenities and a house staff of 60 to provide 5-Star hotel-style services. Indoors, residents can enjoy the 75-foot lap pool with underwater speakers, sauna and steam rooms, a massage and spa treatment room, and fitness center. The outdoor area includes a great lawn, sunning pool and spa, tennis court, strolling gardens, chef’s kitchen, a theater with an 84-foot screen and a fire pit as well as a dedicated dog-run lawn. The Conco Companies are one of the foremost suppliers of concrete services for the Western U.S. We got our start in 1959 in the Bay Area by offering clients the best value on a broad range of concrete services and products. Since that time, we have taken a leading role as top concrete contractors in the region. We have four regional offices serving California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and Washington. At The Conco Companies, we have experience placing any type of concrete for a broad range of projects and in a variety of weather conditions. Our crews use several different methods for curing concrete as it is determined by the type of construction and the concrete mix as well as outside temperatures and humidity. Other considerations include project specifications and/or parameters of the jobsite. However regardless of the technique used for curing, it is important to keep the concrete moist and prevent further loss of moisture.
The Portland Cement Association explains that the purpose of curing is to provide the “adequate amount of moisture for continued hydration and development of strength, volume stability, resistance to freezing and thawing, and abrasion and scaling resistance.” When we control the rate and amount of moisture the concrete loses during cement hydration, it is allowed to achieve its optimal strength and durability. Curing is done at the jobsite once the concrete is placed and finished, or during the manufacturing of concrete products. While curing may only take a few days, the concrete requires a number of days or in some cases weeks or months to attain its full strength and durability. Preventing the loss of moisture during curing is done in a number of ways. One method leaves the formwork in place and/or covers the concrete with an impervious paper, plastic sheeting or a membrane-forming compound. Another includes spraying (or fogging), ponding or using wet coverings to cool the concrete as the water evaporates. The American Concrete Institute (ACI) recommends a curing period of a minimum of 7 days or until 70% of the specified compressive strength is achieved for most concrete structures in temperatures 40º F and above. If desired an accelerant can be used to speed up the hardening process and reduce the curing period to only 3 days if temperatures are above 50º F. Other variables are determined by the size and shape of the structure and strength requirements as well as the type of weather conditions the concrete will be exposed to during its life-cycle. The Conco Companies are one of the leading concrete contractors in the Western U.S. and offer a wide range of quality services and products. Our experience includes providing services for commercial, educational, parking and other construction development as well as public works projects. We serve California, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. Source: cement.org/for-concrete-books-learning/concrete-technology/concrete-construction/curing-in-construction, concrete.org/TopicsinConcrete/TopicDetail.aspx?id=25&Search=Curing Concrete spalling and cracking, sometime referred to as concrete cancer, is caused by rebar corrosion and can affect buildings and other concrete structures. Once the steel reinforcing in a concrete slab begins to rust, the steel rust can expand up to 7 times its original size and results in concrete being displaced and getting flakey. As the steel pushes the concrete away, it allows more water to come into contact with the steel and compounds the problem.
Visible rust stains on the outside of the concrete or leaking, bubbling up stains from within the concrete are probably all signs of concrete spalling and can be a dangerous. The spalling can cause chucks of concrete to separate from a building or bridge and becomes a real hazard to any pedestrians or traffic passing by below. The good news is that a group of researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada may have found a cure for concrete cancer. According to their study, they have gotten good results with producing concrete using discarded glass. The researchers report that “by partially replacing cement with polymer, fly ash and glass powder, we were able to produce concrete that was more than 60% stronger than what was previously believed possible.” They are looking to further test their products but hope to eventually replace up to 25% of traditional cement materials, mined from the earth with recycled glass. One of the authors of the report, Shahria Alam, an associate professor of engineering at the University, explains that millions of tons of glass bypass recycling centers and end up in North American landfills. Their goal was to make smarter and “greener” building materials without having to take new resources out of the ground. At The Conco Companies, we are one of the leading concrete contractors in the Western U.S. and offer a wide range of quality services and products. Our experience includes providing services for commercial, educational, parking and other construction development as well as public works projects. We serve California, Washington State, Oregon, Colorado and Nevada. Source: remedial.com.au/structural-repairs/concrete-cancer |
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