Super strength, fewer joints: Pan American delivers a better industrial floor

When ​SWD Inc. decided to build a 55,000-square-foot addition to its operations in Addison, Illinois, everyone knew the site needed the toughest floor possible.

“We move 300,000 pounds of metal fasteners and small parts in and out of our coating and sorting operations every day”, says SWD owner Tim Delawder. “The metal tubs and constant forklift traffic give our floors a beating.”

Joint patterns mattered, too, says David Crane of Itasca Construction Associates, Inc., general contractor on the project. “The owner wanted to limit the number of joints so they could be filled for a smoother surface.”

First specified as a traditional wire mesh project, plans for this floor changed when Pan American Concrete met with experts at Prairie Material to discuss using fibers instead. “Our tech team designed mixes with dosage rates ranging from 3.5 lbs to 7.5 lbs per yard, along with various supplementary cementitious materials,” explains Prairie sales rep Tom Soukup.

Soukup and Prairie’s Theron Tobolski met with team members from Itasca, Pan American and SWD in a pre-construction meeting. Decision-makers opted for 5.5 lbs of fibers per yard with fly ash added.

​“Owner sign-off was the key to making the switch to fibers,” says JohnPaul Lamberti, vice-president of operations at Pan American. “Change is difficult, and the safe choice is to go with what you’ve always specified, even though we find it’s almost impossible to get wire mesh into the concrete where it will do any good.”

Using trowels with plastic blades, Pan American burnished the freshly poured surface and then sealed it. Joints were cut along 40-foot column lines and skewed by 8 inches to better handle traffic-related stress. Crews then cut a single joint to create 20×20 panels. “There are only 25 joints in the entire floor,” says Lamberti. “With wire mesh reinforcement we’d have done twice as many.”

Project costs were about the same as traditional methods, but the larger joint pattern reduced SWD’s costs for filling all joints, a step completed by Artlow Systems. “SWD tells us they’re extremely happy with the materials and workmanship from Prairie and Pan American, and would definitely recommend this approach for others who want to reduce floor joints,” Lamberti adds.

Speed, safety, lower labor costs: M4 boss says he’ll never go back to mesh

Frank Maiello of M4 Concrete in Addison, Illinois is glad there’s finally an alternative.

“The old scenario was 4 guys laying wire mesh down and another one lifting it up,” he says. “It buckled, it shifted, and after the laser screed ran over it, you knew it was at the bottom where it couldn’t add much strength.”

Maiello favors fiber-enriched concrete because “we just pour and go without the struggle and safety issues.”

M4 recently placed a 100,000-square-foot floor in Hobart, Indiana for Becknell Development. The floor is part of an office and storage warehouse that houses farm machinery. “We decided to go with a dosage rate of 1.5 lbs of fibrillated fiber per yard, since this floor sees only moderate traffic,” says Becknell’s Ned Colson. Specs called for 3,000 psi finished strength and the surface was burnished with standard equipment.

Maiello says a hard-trowel technique “with the pans we have now finishes this concrete beautifully. With the Becknell floor, I figure I came out about 10% ahead when you factor in reduced labor due to greater speed. As far as I’m concerned, we’ll always use fiber for floors going forward.”

Can’t argue with success: Leopardo finds fibers work for gleaming grocery floors

In 2012, general contractor Leopardo Companies, Inc. teamed up with Alright Concrete Company to build the 60,000-square-foot Mariano’s Fresh Market anchoring The Gateway, a 2-block retail development in Chicago’s Greektown.

“Since the floor would be exposed, we specified fibers to minimize shrinkage and cracking,” says Leopardo job superintendent Shawn Buehler. Prairie provided three mix options, performing on-site test pours, Buehler says. The mix selected for the job included 4.5 lbs of macrofiber per yard. The floor was burnished and waxed to a brilliant shine and has held up well, he reports.

When Leopardo and Alright bid on a new Mariano’s near the soon-to-be-rebuilt Ravenswood Metra commuter train station, fiber-rich mixes were again part of the plan. Ground broke last fall on the new station and construction of the new grocery store begins this April.

Free FiberSwap service helps you see the possibilities

Would fibers make sense for your next flatwork project? Prairie now offers FiberSwap, a service “that shows how replacing wire mesh with engineered fiber alternatives can add value for owners and general contractors,” says Prairie Marketing Manager Brad Huiner.​