Masonry Magazine April 2006 Page. 19
Masonry: Throughout your career, you have studied production enhancement methods, eventually creating the Smart Masonry Clean-out System. Explain how this product works and how it has boosted Coastal Masonry's efficiency.
Jensen: The Smart T-bolt and Window combination is used to withstand the pressures of grout during high-lift grouting within the vertical cells of block walls. High-lift grouting requires an inspection opening at the base of each vertical rebar. The transparent inspection windows are installed safely and with no tools prior to inspection. The process, as opposed to low-lift grouting, allows our block crews to build full height walls floor to floor without stopping to place rebar and grout at five-foot increments. Production increases dramatically by reducing 50 percent or more of the grouting operations and by eliminating unnecessary rebar laps that interfere with laying block. The increased production substantially adds to the bottom line.
The methods used prior to the invention of the Smart T-bolt and Window were a combination of bracing plywood, using cut nails or hard nails and hammering them through the plywood and into the face of the blocks to cover the inspection openings to withstand the grout pressures.
The problems associated with that were, first, when you cover something with a non-transparent material such as plywood, you can't see through it and you can't monitor the grout flow. What happens on nearly every job, at one time or another, is that your grout, while it's falling down through the vertical cells of the block, will have a hard clump of something within the mixture that will hang up, either on rebar, wire reinforcing or something within the cavity. It will then leave a hollow spot within that vertical cell. So, if you covered it up with plywood, you wouldn't realize that it's hollow until you pull the plywood off.
In the meantime, you've finished grouting and the grout that did come down the cell and perhaps stopped halfway down has already hardened. The only way to fix it is to break open the wall and pressure grout from the bottom upward. It's a very time-consuming and expensive process if, during the course of grouting, you have to come back and fix areas that were left ungrouted because you were not able to monitor the grout flow. Through the clear plastic windows, we can monitor the grout flow, fix any clogs during the grouting process, and know that all cells were filled completely.
Masonry: Coastal Masonry is actively involved in an apprenticeship program and has sponsored dozens of apprenticeships. How does this program benefit your business and the industry as a whole?
Jensen: As you might know, all across the country, and particularly in South Florida, we are desperately in need of qualified mechanics. I can't tell you how beneficial it is to have an apprenticeship program that produces mechanics for the future because of the lack of skilled workman that we have experienced in the last 10 years.
As far as our sponsorship is concerned, we and anyone else that have apprentices in an apprenticeship program of any kind understand that we're educating the apprentices for the industry as a whole; apprentices don't necessarily stay with one particular company. They may move from one area to another, or one job to another.
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CIRCLE 183 ON READER SERVICE CARD
April 2006
Masonry
17