HIS year, four men joined the ranks of those honored in the Decorative Concrete Hall of Fame at an induction ceremony and dinner held Oct. 28 at the 2019 Concrete Decor Show in Arlington, Texas: Marshall Barabasch Sr., head of Shaw & Sons Special Project Division; Lance Boyer, CEO of Trademark Concrete Systems; and Jeff Irwin and Paul Sowa, co-owners of Proline Decorative Concrete Systems. All three companies are based in Southern California.

Professional Trade Publications, parent company of Concrete Decor magazine, established the prestigious hall in 2010 to honor the individuals and companies who have contributed significantly to the advancement of decorative concrete as a business and an art form.

TOTAL of 47 survey respondents shared their opinions on decorative concrete training programs in an informal survey conducted by Concrete Decor magazine. The survey was sent to current and past magazine subscribers as well as Concrete Decor Show attendees.

Asked to list the decorative concrete classes they judge the best, respondents cited The Concrete Countertop Institute, based in Raleigh, North Carolina, and operated by Jeff Girard and Lane Mangum, 34 times. Girard and Mangum have contributed articles to Concrete Decor and presented programs at the Concrete Decor Show in the past.

Runner-up was the Concrete Design School in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with programs presented by Brandon Gore and Dusty Baker. They received 21 mentions. Both men’s work has been featured in the pages of Concrete Decor.

ANY people get into the construction trades because of the ongoing challenge of building something new. Imagine the thrill of helping to build a whole new city — in 14 weeks.

That’s exactly what production manager Jeff Parker, superintendent Juan Garza and a team ranging from eight to 15 artisans with the decorative concrete division of Dallas-based Concrete Preservation have been doing this fall. As for the quick turnaround, well, the “city” is only about 80,000 square feet and sized specifically for children 14 and younger.

When Dallas KidZania opened in the Texas suburb of Frisco in November, it was the first U.S. franchise of this Mexican-based corporation that’s dedicated to helping children learn by doing. Set up as a community in miniature, it offers kids the opportunity to role play and earn “money,” called kidZos, while trying out 100 different careers.

HEN I founded my company, Quality Epoxy, 20+ years ago, I only offered solid colors. Over the ensuing years as my competition began to heat up, I also started offering a five-layer chip system with 5/8-inch chips. I went with the 5/8-inch chips because the standard industry chip size is 1/8 inch or 1/4 inch and I wanted to offer a better-looking floor than my competition.

Over the course of many years, my chip system floors earned me local recognition. But in time, I began to get burned out on chip floors and solid colors. I was never pleased how solid colors were such a thin coat system. There were always problems with inconsistent pigment.

By 2010, I contemplated selling my company. During this burn-out stage, I was surfing the internet and stumbled upon an amazing flooring system called “metallics.” In 2011, I shelved the idea of selling my company and turned my attention to learning all I could about metallics so I could offer them to customers in the Phoenix market.

ccording to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report, the total amount of waste material has increased from 88 million tons in 1960 to 262 million tons in 2015. In 2015, 26% of the waste materials was recycled, 9% was composted, 13% was combusted with energy recovery and 52% was disposed of in landfills.

Among all the waste materials that have been recycled, batteries and steel are the most recyclable. Although glass is a material that can be recycled, just 34% of waste glass has been recycled. The main reason why collected mix-color waste glass isn’t recycled is due to its chemical composition.

Typically, glass containers consist of sand, soda ash, limestone and cullet. Sand is glass’s main component and is its source of silica. Soda ash is added to the mixture to decrease the melting temperature. The chemical compositions of different glass colors are slightly different which affect their melting temperature. Therefore, glass containers can’t be properly recycled unless they’re sorted based on their color.

s polished concrete becomes more mainstream for floors, it continues to gain momentum across the board. In fact, industry statistics show that polished concrete is now 15-20% of the total flooring installed each year.

For decades, most architects, general contractors and facility owners tended to lump floor covering/flooring and polished concrete into the same category — usually division 9 (finishes) because they didn’t commonly consider the differences. Due to the flooring industry’s significant efforts to educate (and provide proper specifications to) architects, contractors and owners, these client groups now (mostly!) categorize polished concrete and concrete flooring under division 3 (concrete), right where they belong.

“Floor covering” and “flooring” are terms that generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. It’s common for these terms to be used interchangeably.

s polished concrete becomes more mainstream for floors, it continues to gain momentum across the board. In fact, industry statistics show that polished concrete is now 15-20% of the total flooring installed each year.

For decades, most architects, general contractors and facility owners tended to lump floor covering/flooring and polished concrete into the same category — usually division 9 (finishes) because they didn’t commonly consider the differences. Due to the flooring industry’s significant efforts to educate (and provide proper specifications to) architects, contractors and owners, these client groups now (mostly!) categorize polished concrete and concrete flooring under division 3 (concrete), right where they belong.

“Floor covering” and “flooring” are terms that generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. It’s common for these terms to be used interchangeably.

here’s a massive table in Asheville, North Carolina, crafted from precast GFRC and an 18-foot-long red oak log. Tipping the scales at 12,000 pounds, the elusive log alone took the men behind the table more than a year to find. And once they did it was “a bit of a dance” to make the table whole.

When the log was delivered, the furniture makers fashioned a base from it to support a 20½-foot-long precast concrete tabletop that tapers in width from 5 feet to 4. Figuring a log that size will take 10 years to dry out completely and will likely shrink in the process by as much as 10%, they built the tabletop with recessed spaces so it would sit on the base like a cap. The bolts that support the top can be adjusted to the desired height to compensate for the ensuing shrinkage. Problem solved.