Information on Concrete Forever Companies
Concrete Forever is headquartered in Houston Texas and is home to some of the
Industries finest concrete finishers & researchers in the Houston area.
Strict quality control has earned the Concrete Forever companies an impeccable
reputation among Houston's Elite Residents having been featured in Many
Architectural Articles and also featured in Houston's own Houston House and Home
Magazine. Recently BrickForm awarded ConcreteForever's key personnel
certificates of Outstanding Achievement. Letters of recommendations from some of
Houstons most affluent residents have been pouring in and also pasted on their
blog as well as having been featured in Houston;s most upscale magazine :
Houston House & Home Magazine
Concrete Forever uses an engineered concrete composite on it's high end
decorative concrete installations to help prevent cracking conducive to
movements associated with versitol clay soil properties that Houston is known for.
A brief history of the Concrete Forever Company, such as how long they have been
in business goes back to when scientists in Michigan first started experimenting with
concrete composites and tensile strength properties. Concrete Forever in Houston is
all about providing home owners and business owners with a smart alternative to
plain concrete or traditional ready mixed concrete.
Unlike many Houston area Concrete Contractors Concrete Forever never accepts a
deposit or any type of upfront money until substantial phases of the project are
complete, assuring you of concreteforever's commitment to providing you with the
highest quality concrete work, risk free.
To become a Concrete Forever technician you have to complete a 100 hour
course in decorative concrete applications, 75 hours of concrete placement 101
and have a minimum 3 years experience in the concrete or masonry field. Online
employment applications can be found here
One important fact is that the Concrete Forever Group is the only Decorative
Concrete Contractor in Houston That distributes their concrete composite, the
preparation thats taken into consideration prior to any concrete placement also sets
the Concrete Forever artisans apart from the typical Houston Concrete Contractor.
Q: What does ConcreteForever.com do thats different?:
A: Fine sand cushion is placed over pneumatically compacted soil prior to their
typical concrete installation. Why? Because clay soils expand with rainwater
and if no cushion is placed under the slab it will lift the concrete thus
compromising the structural integrity.
Soil Compaction:
An average yard of concrete weighs an average 3,974 pounds per cubic yard.
The average stamped concrete patio takes about ten yards. Calculate that times
ten and you have 39,740 pounds of stamped concrete sitting in your back yard.
Placing 40,000 pounds of concrete over un compacted soil sounds ludicrous but
unfortunately it's done every day in Houston to homeowners that just don't know any
better.
Concrete Forever on the other hand will bring in the proper amount of sand base
whether it's a stamped concrete patio or a plain concrete driveway and they will
also machine compact the soil to a average compaction ratio of 95% soil uniform
density and thickness and remove any deleterious material prior to the concrete
flatwork or foundation slab installation. Just one of the amenities you'll get when
you hire Concrete Forever.com.
Concrete Forever is located at 1 Houston Plaza, Houston TX 70007 corporate
phone number is (713) 696-9405.
The Affordable Contractors Network (parent company of Concrete Forever) has
eleven affiliate locations nationwide and a combined work force of over 150
concrete workers as part of the Affordable Contractors Network
Concrete Forever provides custom concrete patios, custom concrete driveways,
stamped concrete flooring, custom flatwork, concrete foundations, slabs and
parking lots.
Concrete Forever in Houston also offers engineering services related to soil
engineering, testings & analysis as well as structural reviews
While many companies in the concrete stamping business in Houston struggle with
quality control the management team at Concrete Forever provide world class on
site supervision by trained professionals that not only estimate the job but also assist
in planning, patio design, drainage considerations, material ordering, concrete
scheduling and optimization, project coordination with all parties concerned from
the labor force to the final punch list walk through with the homeowners, rest
assured your project will be finished on time and done right!
Industries finest concrete finishers & researchers in the Houston area.
Strict quality control has earned the Concrete Forever companies an impeccable
reputation among Houston's Elite Residents having been featured in Many
Architectural Articles and also featured in Houston's own Houston House and Home
Magazine. Recently BrickForm awarded ConcreteForever's key personnel
certificates of Outstanding Achievement. Letters of recommendations from some of
Houstons most affluent residents have been pouring in and also pasted on their
blog as well as having been featured in Houston;s most upscale magazine :
Houston House & Home Magazine
Concrete Forever uses an engineered concrete composite on it's high end
decorative concrete installations to help prevent cracking conducive to
movements associated with versitol clay soil properties that Houston is known for.
A brief history of the Concrete Forever Company, such as how long they have been
in business goes back to when scientists in Michigan first started experimenting with
concrete composites and tensile strength properties. Concrete Forever in Houston is
all about providing home owners and business owners with a smart alternative to
plain concrete or traditional ready mixed concrete.
Unlike many Houston area Concrete Contractors Concrete Forever never accepts a
deposit or any type of upfront money until substantial phases of the project are
complete, assuring you of concreteforever's commitment to providing you with the
highest quality concrete work, risk free.
To become a Concrete Forever technician you have to complete a 100 hour
course in decorative concrete applications, 75 hours of concrete placement 101
and have a minimum 3 years experience in the concrete or masonry field. Online
employment applications can be found here
One important fact is that the Concrete Forever Group is the only Decorative
Concrete Contractor in Houston That distributes their concrete composite, the
preparation thats taken into consideration prior to any concrete placement also sets
the Concrete Forever artisans apart from the typical Houston Concrete Contractor.
Q: What does ConcreteForever.com do thats different?:
A: Fine sand cushion is placed over pneumatically compacted soil prior to their
typical concrete installation. Why? Because clay soils expand with rainwater
and if no cushion is placed under the slab it will lift the concrete thus
compromising the structural integrity.
Soil Compaction:
An average yard of concrete weighs an average 3,974 pounds per cubic yard.
The average stamped concrete patio takes about ten yards. Calculate that times
ten and you have 39,740 pounds of stamped concrete sitting in your back yard.
Placing 40,000 pounds of concrete over un compacted soil sounds ludicrous but
unfortunately it's done every day in Houston to homeowners that just don't know any
better.
Concrete Forever on the other hand will bring in the proper amount of sand base
whether it's a stamped concrete patio or a plain concrete driveway and they will
also machine compact the soil to a average compaction ratio of 95% soil uniform
density and thickness and remove any deleterious material prior to the concrete
flatwork or foundation slab installation. Just one of the amenities you'll get when
you hire Concrete Forever.com.
Concrete Forever is located at 1 Houston Plaza, Houston TX 70007 corporate
phone number is (713) 696-9405.
The Affordable Contractors Network (parent company of Concrete Forever) has
eleven affiliate locations nationwide and a combined work force of over 150
concrete workers as part of the Affordable Contractors Network
Concrete Forever provides custom concrete patios, custom concrete driveways,
stamped concrete flooring, custom flatwork, concrete foundations, slabs and
parking lots.
Concrete Forever in Houston also offers engineering services related to soil
engineering, testings & analysis as well as structural reviews
While many companies in the concrete stamping business in Houston struggle with
quality control the management team at Concrete Forever provide world class on
site supervision by trained professionals that not only estimate the job but also assist
in planning, patio design, drainage considerations, material ordering, concrete
scheduling and optimization, project coordination with all parties concerned from
the labor force to the final punch list walk through with the homeowners, rest
assured your project will be finished on time and done right!
| About Concrete Forever |
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Whats new?
While government leaders argue about the practicality of reducing world
emissions of carbon dioxide, Concrete Forever technicians are looking for a way
to make it happen.
Our constituents at MIT decided to focus its work on the nano structure of
concrete, the world's most widely used material. The production of cement, the
primary component of concrete, accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the world's total
carbon dioxide emissions; the process is an important contributor to global
warming, a concern for the Concrete Forever Group.
In the January issue of the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, the
team reported that the source of concrete's strength and durability lies in the
organization of its nano particles. The discovery could one day lead to a major
reduction in carbon dioxide emissions during manufacturing.
"If everything depends on the organizational structure of the nano particles that
make up concrete, rather than on the material itself, we can conceivably
replace it with a material that has concrete's other characteristics of strength,
durability, mass availability and low cost but not releasing such a significant
amount of CO2 into the atmosphere during the manufacture process," said
David Hunt, Engineer and Project Manager at Concrete Forever and undergraduate of
civil and environmental engineering.
The work also shows that the study of very common materials at the nano scale
has great potential for improving materials in ways we might not have
conceived. Hunt refers to his work as the "Identification of geogenomic
code of materials or the blueprint of a material's nano mechanical behavior."
As of February 12, 2007 cement is manufactured at the rate of 2.36 billion tons
per year, enough to produce more than 1 cubic meter of concrete for every
person in the world! Hunts hypothesis is that engineers can reduce carbon
dioxide emissions in the world's cement manufacturing by more than 10
percent, that would accomplish one-fifth of the Kyoto Protocol goal of a 5.2
percent reduction in total carbon dioxide emissions.
Hunt considers this a very real possibility.
He and Georgios Constantide, a postdoctoral researcher in materials science
and engineering, have studied the behavior of the nano structure of cement.
They found that at the nano level, cement particles organize naturally into the
most densely packed structure possible for spherical objects, which is similar to
a pyramid-shaped pile of oranges.
Cement, the oldest engineered construction material, dating back to the Roman
Empire, starts out as limestone and clay that are crushed to a powder and
heated to a very high temperature (1500 degrees Celsius) in a kiln. At this high
temperature, the mineral undergoes a transformation, storing energy in the
powder. When the powder is mixed with water, the energy is released into
chemical bonds to form the elementary building block of cement, calcium
silicate hydrate (CSH). At the micro level, CSH acts as a glue to bind sand and
gravel together to create concrete. Most of the carbon dioxide emissions in this
manufacturing process result from heating the kiln to a temperature high
enough to transfer energy into the powder.
Concrete Forever Technicians gathered a wide range of cement pastes from
around the country, and, using a novel nano indentation technique, poked and
prodded the hardened cement paste with a nano-sized needle. An atomic force
microscope allowed them to see the nano structure and judge the strength of
each paste by measuring indentations created by the needle, a technique that
had been used before on homogeneous materials, but not on a heterogeneous
material like cement.
To their surprise, they discovered that the CSH behavior in all of the different
cement pastes consistently displays a unique nano signature, which they call
the material's genomic code. This indicates that the strength of cement paste,
and thus of concrete, does not lie in the specific mineral, but in the
organization of that mineral as packed nano particles.
The CSH particles (each about five nanometers, or billionths of a meter, in
diameter) have only two packing densities, one for particles placed randomly,
say in a box, and another for those stacked symmetrically in a pyramid shape
(like a grocer's pile of fruit). These correspond exactly to the mathematically
proved highest packing densities allowed by nature for spherical objects: 63 and
74 percent, respectively. In other words, the Concrete Forever research shows
that materials pack similarly even at the nano scale.
"The construction industry relies heavily on empirical data, but the physics and
structure of cement were not well understood," said David Hunt. "Now that the
nano indentation equipment is becoming more widely available in the late
1990s, there were only four or five machines in the world and now there are five
at MIT alone we can go from studying the mechanics of structures to the
mechanics of material at this very small scale."
If the researchers can find find or nanoengineer or a different mineral to use in
cement paste, one that has the same packing density but does not require the
high temperatures during production, they could conceivably cut world carbon
dioxide emissions by up to 10 percent.
This aspect of the work is just beginning. Hunt estimates that it will take about
five years or more and says he's presently looking at magnesium as a possible
replacement for the calcium in cement powder. "Magnesium is an earth metal,
like calcium, but it is a waste material that people must pay to dispose of," Hunt
points out.
While government leaders argue about the practicality of reducing world
emissions of carbon dioxide, Concrete Forever technicians are looking for a way
to make it happen.
Our constituents at MIT decided to focus its work on the nano structure of
concrete, the world's most widely used material. The production of cement, the
primary component of concrete, accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the world's total
carbon dioxide emissions; the process is an important contributor to global
warming, a concern for the Concrete Forever Group.
In the January issue of the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, the
team reported that the source of concrete's strength and durability lies in the
organization of its nano particles. The discovery could one day lead to a major
reduction in carbon dioxide emissions during manufacturing.
"If everything depends on the organizational structure of the nano particles that
make up concrete, rather than on the material itself, we can conceivably
replace it with a material that has concrete's other characteristics of strength,
durability, mass availability and low cost but not releasing such a significant
amount of CO2 into the atmosphere during the manufacture process," said
David Hunt, Engineer and Project Manager at Concrete Forever and undergraduate of
civil and environmental engineering.
The work also shows that the study of very common materials at the nano scale
has great potential for improving materials in ways we might not have
conceived. Hunt refers to his work as the "Identification of geogenomic
code of materials or the blueprint of a material's nano mechanical behavior."
As of February 12, 2007 cement is manufactured at the rate of 2.36 billion tons
per year, enough to produce more than 1 cubic meter of concrete for every
person in the world! Hunts hypothesis is that engineers can reduce carbon
dioxide emissions in the world's cement manufacturing by more than 10
percent, that would accomplish one-fifth of the Kyoto Protocol goal of a 5.2
percent reduction in total carbon dioxide emissions.
Hunt considers this a very real possibility.
He and Georgios Constantide, a postdoctoral researcher in materials science
and engineering, have studied the behavior of the nano structure of cement.
They found that at the nano level, cement particles organize naturally into the
most densely packed structure possible for spherical objects, which is similar to
a pyramid-shaped pile of oranges.
Cement, the oldest engineered construction material, dating back to the Roman
Empire, starts out as limestone and clay that are crushed to a powder and
heated to a very high temperature (1500 degrees Celsius) in a kiln. At this high
temperature, the mineral undergoes a transformation, storing energy in the
powder. When the powder is mixed with water, the energy is released into
chemical bonds to form the elementary building block of cement, calcium
silicate hydrate (CSH). At the micro level, CSH acts as a glue to bind sand and
gravel together to create concrete. Most of the carbon dioxide emissions in this
manufacturing process result from heating the kiln to a temperature high
enough to transfer energy into the powder.
Concrete Forever Technicians gathered a wide range of cement pastes from
around the country, and, using a novel nano indentation technique, poked and
prodded the hardened cement paste with a nano-sized needle. An atomic force
microscope allowed them to see the nano structure and judge the strength of
each paste by measuring indentations created by the needle, a technique that
had been used before on homogeneous materials, but not on a heterogeneous
material like cement.
To their surprise, they discovered that the CSH behavior in all of the different
cement pastes consistently displays a unique nano signature, which they call
the material's genomic code. This indicates that the strength of cement paste,
and thus of concrete, does not lie in the specific mineral, but in the
organization of that mineral as packed nano particles.
The CSH particles (each about five nanometers, or billionths of a meter, in
diameter) have only two packing densities, one for particles placed randomly,
say in a box, and another for those stacked symmetrically in a pyramid shape
(like a grocer's pile of fruit). These correspond exactly to the mathematically
proved highest packing densities allowed by nature for spherical objects: 63 and
74 percent, respectively. In other words, the Concrete Forever research shows
that materials pack similarly even at the nano scale.
"The construction industry relies heavily on empirical data, but the physics and
structure of cement were not well understood," said David Hunt. "Now that the
nano indentation equipment is becoming more widely available in the late
1990s, there were only four or five machines in the world and now there are five
at MIT alone we can go from studying the mechanics of structures to the
mechanics of material at this very small scale."
If the researchers can find find or nanoengineer or a different mineral to use in
cement paste, one that has the same packing density but does not require the
high temperatures during production, they could conceivably cut world carbon
dioxide emissions by up to 10 percent.
This aspect of the work is just beginning. Hunt estimates that it will take about
five years or more and says he's presently looking at magnesium as a possible
replacement for the calcium in cement powder. "Magnesium is an earth metal,
like calcium, but it is a waste material that people must pay to dispose of," Hunt
points out.
