Thursday, March 26, 2009

Symons Irons Out the Details

Ring wallThe Mesabi Nugget plant, in the Mesabi Iron Ore Range in northeastern Minnesota, will be the first full-scale, high-grade iron nugget plant to be built. The construction project started in October, 2007 with the Rotary Hearth Furnace (RHF) building. This portion of the project was awarded to Oscar J. Boldt Construction located in Cloquet, MN. The RHF building consisted of a 33' wide circular footing with an inside radius of approximately 82' with two ring walls that sit on top spaced approximately 16' apart. Because of an environmental permit expiration date that was very close, the contractor was given just five days from the award of the project until they had to be on site, starting the foundation. Because of the unusually narrow time constraints, the contractor needed a forming system with a true radius very quickly. The Minneapolis-area Symons branch immediately shipped Alisply™ Circular forming system components to form the wide footing. To build the ring walls that sit on top of the footing, the contractor chose Flex-Form® panels, which were shipped to the site already set at the required radius so that the project could continue moving along quickly. Symons provided all of the forming and shoring systems for the RHF construction.


Discharge foundationSteel-Ply® was used to form the equipment ramp walls and other structures. ShorFast™ supported the elevated slab over the equipment ramp and the discharge chamber. Hammerlund Construction from Grand Rapids, Minnesota has been awarded the contract to construct five buildings on this project. As a previous user of the Symons Alisply™forming system, Hammlund has selected it again on this project. The buildings they are constructing are a Raw Materials Preparation building, Pelletizing building, Warehouse, an Electrical Substation and a Product Cooling Tower. The ability to quickly reconfigure the Alisply system for each of these different structures has kept the project moving.


See video and more photos at http://www.steeldynamics.com/index.php?page_id=117

Monday, March 16, 2009

Green Construction

With many sectors of the construction market down, don't underestimate the growing importance of "going green"!
  • The U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit organization dedicated to sustainable building design and construction. They are the developers of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system.
  • Need to know more about green construction to begin the process of making the switch? Check out the federal requirements and other information at the FedCenter.gov site.
  • McGraw-Hill recently published "2009 Green Outlook: Trends Driving Change Report" which estimates that the overall green building market could more than double in 4 years. See their site for more details.
  • To help you find products for green buildings, Sweets has a special SweetsGreen Collection.
  • To get a better understanding of the costs and benefits of acquiring LEED certification, see the GreenBuildingSolutions.org site.
  • Check out the environmentally friendly concrete construction chemicals available from Symons. Bio-based release, cure & seal, etc. can help you earn LEED Credits.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

A.H. Harris & Sons Promote Concrete Step Wizard

AH Harris Open House featured Step WizardAH Harris & Sons and Symons have actively promoted the Concrete Step Wizard by setting up displays in over 20 AH Harris locations. In addition, the Step Wizard was displayed at the Cranston Rhode Island open house. The display was a hit with the contactors in attendance. Contractors such as Algar Construction who have purchased the product love the labor saving features of the Step Wizard.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Who Would Have Thought Symons Red Would Be So Green

Green world

  • Every steel product (form frames and faces, ties and all) from Symons has 90% post-industrial and/or consumer recycled scrap content.

  • Every sheet of HDO plywood from Symons is considered green by most industry definitions, too. It's harvested from trees grown in sustainable North American forests.

  • Not only are individual components green, but entire forming systems are considered green. They're reusable, so they contribute very little to the waste-stream, which conserves resources and reduces disposal costs.

  • And Symons has a line of environmentally-friendly concrete construction chemicals that will help earn LEEDS Credits, too!