Latest / The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast / 011 - Dustin Heiland

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011 - Dustin Heiland · The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast

• Paul: And welcome in to the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast on our way to being the number one concrete podcast. And we are brought to you by Rocket Start. That's right, our friend Manny Tejano. He's out there doing big things. The Ultimate Culture Warrior has built the ultimate culture platform. If you're a company who seeks to empower your employees through recognition and rewards, I highly encourage you to go visit. Gorocketstart.com tell Manny Tejano that Slump Monkey's Concrete Podcast sent you. You can see Manny this fall at the Concrete Works Trade Show. He'll be bouncing around and visit him anytime on his website at gorocketstart.com. Doomer. Doomer. Doomerism. Merriam Webster has that defined as extreme pessimism. A doomer is an extreme pessimist. A person who, whether in general or regarding a particular issue, such as like, you know, AI or the economy, is often so pessimistic. To the point that they believe nothing can be done and that efforts to solve the problem are completely futile. I have friends who are doomers. They've been predicting the end of days for several years now. And they may finally be correct. This weekend, I saw a mattress firm go out of business. Folks, this all the sirens should be going off right now. mattress firm lives on a nationwide campaign of quote going out of business. Everything's fifty percent off, but they never go out of business. That they just keep sucking you in because you think, wow, I better get in there quick before all the deals are gone. But they never actually close their doors until now. My friends, it may truly be the end of times. This revelation has caused me To rethink my position on the economy. Perhaps the doomers are finally right. I just could not believe it. When I saw that, you may say, What, what, what? What are you even talking about, Paul? Well, I dropped my wife off inside the Trader Joe's. We'd already been grocery shopping for like three hours at that point. You know, you gotta hit the Costco during executive membership hour. Then you gotta hit. the Wegmans, and then to top it off, you go to the Trader Joe's. But by the time we got to Trader Joe's, the six month old was already asleep. And we ain't we ain't rocking that boat. So dad gets to drive around the parking lot, keep baby asleep while mama goes in and does what little shopping has to get done at Trader Joe's. And as I'm circling that lot, there's a mattress firm there that literally went out of business in that strip. I never thought I would see the day that that happens. speaking of Doomers, some of us feel like Doomers after week one of the Slump Monkeys College Football Pick'em Contest presented by Vince Hagen. And nobody's more angry than team name Black and Gold, who finished dead last. Bro got beat by my 10-year-old, and she didn't even know the rules. So Tough looked in. Best part is I don't even know who black and gold is. It's anonymous. I can't see. So if you think I'm being too harsh, then you have no friends in construction. because if they're not kicking you and you're down, then they're not really your friend. but if black and gold wants to improve, they can start with my lock of the week. My lock of the week in week two on the ESPN pick that of the choices they give us. It's Alabama, minus ten and a half at Kentucky. And you you may be listening to this, thinking, Well, you you're a Bama fan, you're a Bama homer. Of course you want to talk about Bama. Well, kind of. But truthfully, I was totally prepared to come on here today and be the that guy who's probably the most annoying guy who's like, Yeah, we won forty eight to ten, but But w it was a it was a bad forty eight. It was an ugly forty-eight. It we we had bajillion penalties and you know, I mean, I'm not gonna do that to you. We looked horrible and still put up forty eight points on an East Carolina team that, by the way, finished the season ranked fifty fifth last year. So is that like the most impressive thing to beat the fifty fifth ranked team forty eight to ten? I mean No, I don't know, maybe. But look at all the other games where top teams were playing guys way worse than that. Western Michigan 60 finished 68th last year. Miami won't celebrate. Like they're awesome, but did you know Stanford finished like 108? all love Andrew Luck, but he ain't exactly building freaking NFL pipeline out there. So you got Obama team who didn't seem like they could really click. They weren't really clicking. Things were just weird. and we still won 48 to 10. And you're telling me that we go against a Kentucky ranked team, probably ranked in the 30s, and that we can't beat them by 10? Of course we can. Lock of the week, Alabama minus 10 and a half. Have fun in the pick'em league. You know who doesn't need my picking advice? The six people who went eight and two. Holy crap. Incredible. Job. you may not need my picks, but some of y'all need Jesus. Have y'all seen the names in this pick'em group? tied for first, you have Joe Buck yourself and Valls Deep in Your Mom. I don't even feel comfortable reading that out loud. This is a family program. Do you know that my ten year old daughter looked me in the eyes and goes, Dad, what does vols deep in your mom mean? And I had to tell her that I don't really know, which isn't entirely a lie, but it felt like one. So, you know, I don't even know what this other one means. I'm afraid to read it 'cause I'm afraid it might there's another one on here. I'm like, I I really I don't know what that means. And I'm afraid it means something I shouldn't say on air. So we're just gonna leave it. Great job, eight and two people. And you know, while they search for the light of the Lord. Let me tell you about the greatest job search platform in the concrete industry. That's right. I'm talking about concrete careers. They're a specialty search firm focused on the challenging positions in the concrete industry, including professional and executive roles across the full concrete life cycle. The most exciting thing about concrete careers is. Is that they just put out a concrete industry specific job board, and you can go find that at concretecareers.com slash jobs. If you think that the timing might be right for you, you're just or maybe you're just curious about what's out there, want to see roles in your area, maybe even similar to what you're doing now, and what those options are. You can visit concrete careers.com. dot com slash job no matter your hiring needs concrete careers is here to support you that's right they work on both sides they're trying to match the best candidate for a role so they're helping the folks who are hiring they're helping the folks who are searching for jobs and they can get you matched up that's concrete careers dot com concrete works. Not only can you see Manny Tahano there, you can see us. Concrete works is coming to Nashville October 17th and 18. You can come see what I do as my actual main job. Work for a company called Fall Line Minerals. You can see us on the web, flminerals.us. We're making a calcine clay for Redmix Concrete. Lower the GWP value. Of the mix, mostly going into data centers right now. Lots of fun. Wonderful company. we are gonna have a booth there. Come check us out. after you stop by that booth, that's Fall Line Minerals. If you stop by that booth, why don't you join me? Join us. The Slump Monkeys community will be live inside the Vince Hagen booth. That's right. Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast will be live in Nashville. We'll have A stellar lineup of guests. If you would like to be included as a guest in the on site on site show, please email me admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. It would be part of a great event hosted inside the Vents Hagen booth. Sign up today so you don't miss out on the fun. It's a great opportunity to connect with our community. We're gonna be doing a lot more of these live events, these on-site events. I want you guys you know to know how important this is for me. When we did the previous podcast, we would pull this into our act to gel booth and we'd do it right there, and it was a lot of fun. And it it really felt like it brought the community together. we're gonna do that in a much bigger way. And I'm so thankful to Vince Hagen for being the catalyst for that, guys. Tell them you love them, you love that they're supporting us. They're allowing us to do this, they're giving us a space, they're gonna really take this thing up a notch. And I can't be more excited to do that. Please stop by the booth and see the show. Consider coming on as a guest. It's an absolute hoot. I love seeing you get seeing you all there. Other things I love seeing, I love seeing all the new projects that get announced in our space. There's always fun jobs. These days I mostly look at the data center projects, but you know, I like other monster jobs too. The one thing I don't like, though, is that all the announcements are written by like professional PR people. I can't stand that. None of them speak construction. They it everything feels so sanitized. It it's it's actually it's in political speech. Because what the politicians realized a long time ago is it it doesn't matter like what the deliverable is. What matters to the public is that they put a giant dollar figure on it. So like there's an announcement of a a Walmart fulfillment center. Walmart's gonna build like four of these high-tech, high-end fulfillment centers in the next couple of years. And the first one's going up. In Carnesville, Georgia. I don't even know if I'm saying that right. It might be Carnesville, Carnaville, Carnesville, Georgia, rural, middle of nowhere, Georgia is getting the state-of-the-art Walmart fulfillment center. But they don't they don't speak it in concrete. They they just put a giant number. Walmart to build $1.3 billion fulfillment center in Georgia. And everybody claps, and the governor gets a pat on the back. And you know, it doesn't even matter if the thing never gets built. It doesn't matter. He made the announcement. He gets his pat on the back. And and I understand why they want to look at things in terms of dollars. a thousand jobs are coming to community. I get it. It's it's direct investment into the state. And the states typically are competing for these things. And so to have won it and get to announce this giant price tag and all the jobs, it's great. But that's not what I want. I I want it in construction terms. 'Cause that doesn't tell me anything I actually want to know. See, if I wrote this thing for you guys, like what if what if you went to the announcement page and it has its normal PR firm, you know, p political verbiage, but then you could hit translate on that thing. And the translate allows you to turn it into whatever version you want. And what if you could do a finance version or a concrete version and it just talks to you like a the you know the voice that you like and so i i had a little fun with this so what if what if this was in in concrete speak instead of instead of saying like one point three billion dollars and you know gonna create a thousand jobs or whatever it'd like a 1.5 million square foot automated industrial facility is moving into site development on a hundred and sixty four acre track Civil package is active, but high value building concrete scopes still open. Get in now. The eventual winners need to demonstrate you can do the slabs on grade. You got the volume possibilities and coordinate around automation-driven tolerances. And if it's really honest, go the next step and be like and be like, if you like high pressure. If you like high pressure situations and where the incentives don't match the scope of the project and you get questioned every five days about what's happening, then this is the job for you. if you just want to get punched in the nether regions every time you turn around, then this is the job for you. I mean, that would be That's how they should do it. That's how they should announce these things. They should be honest, hilarious. They should speak in construction tones. That right now everything's written by PR people in the best case. The worst case, it's written by Chat GPT. You know, we could translate it into construction speak. And it tells you, this is gonna be a hundred and fifty thousand yard job because it's got you know, two elevated decks on this million square foot house. Like that's the information I want. But whatever. It's not written for us guys. It's written for the politicians so they can feel good about themselves. But you know what? No matter what language you speak, Command Alcon translates into a job well done. Command Alcon celebrating fifty years in the concrete business. Fifty years as a tech platform, as a software company. How crazy is that? Fifty years. That go back fifty years, nineteen seventy six. Floppy discs. Like the actual floppy ones. Like when we grew up in the nineties, like we had the little hard floppy cartridges that are like the save icon now on a Word document. No, no, no, no. Real floppy discs, the giant ones, wafer things. That was Command Alcon back in the day, probably. I Yeah, maybe. don't know. Anyway, that was going on. And they're still here today. And they're rocking, they're rolling, they're dominating. So we appreciate them being a sponsor here. All of our sponsors. We love them all. They're all wonderful. if you would like to consider being a sponsor on the show, you can email me directly. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's M-O-N-K-E-Y-S. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com We can get in touch and we can see if advertising on this podcast is the right move for you. I don't normally do this, but I need to ask a good favor. Please, would you please subscribe? If you're listening right now, take just a moment. Hopefully, you're not driving. Take just a moment. Grab your phone, hit subscribe. If you want to be a part of the most interactive side of the community, that's on the LinkedIn. Page, just search Slump Monkey's Concrete Podcast. Please hit the follow button there. I really appreciate it. 90% of the people that interact with our content, that is, stream it, download it, view it, comment on it. 90% are not subscribed or do not follow. That kind of hurts my heart a little bit. but it also lets me know that people are consuming the content. Our reach is 10x what it probably should be. so those are all positive signs. it would be more positive if you took just a moment, subscribe to show. With that said, we had a quick hitter today on this side of the pod. Really excited about this guest coming on. We needed another technical guy. In here. It's been too many days since Jason Wimberly was here. We got another technical face, voice, a leader. I'm so happy that my friend Dustin Highland of Concrete Supply Company is here for the interview portion of our show. And welcome into the interview portion of the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast, joined by my good friend and confidant, Dustin Ox Highland Concrete Supply Company. Thank you for joining us, brother. Dustin Heiland: Glad to be here, Paul. Paul: work with you know that your nickname is Ox? Dustin Heiland: a few more since I did the the quick interview at NRMCA. I think that was last year, so Paul: Yeah. we're doing those again, by the way. this year I just announced it in the current events section of the show. but we'll we'll announce it here again. the Slump Monkeys podcast is gonna be live on site. We're gonna be inside the Vince Hagen booth. And Dustin Heiland: Okay. Paul: they're putting they're putting a booth together, a place for us to record. It's gonna be sick. we're gonna do it we're Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: gonna do it there. We're also gonna do it at World of Concrete, it's gonna be even more awesome at World of Concrete. So They're kind enough to Dustin Heiland: yeah. Paul: give me a s give me a space and help build it out a little bit, make it a little bit nicer than what we did last year. Dustin Heiland: Hey, the act of jail booth was was Hoppet, for sure. Paul: Yeah, well, it's funny. I it was it probably was the most traffic booth of any Dustin Heiland: Mm-hmm. Paul: any booth, but it w it was because we were psychopaths and did a live demo on that stage. Dustin Heiland: That was impressive, man. I wish they would have given you about ten, fifteen more minutes to really Paul: I mean, we did w they gave us ten minutes. We did w we did what we could, made a mix of concrete, Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: did our did our best and Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: you know, but it was exciting. It got people to come over and ask questions. Say, What are y'all doing? What are these crazy crazy fools making concrete on the stage? Dustin Heiland: Yeah, making concrete in a carpeted arena. Paul: Yeah. Well the hard part w was like what do you do with the the waist because we made two cubic feet of concrete with nowhere to put it. Dustin Heiland: You get a sidewalk you need repair. Perform some Paul: Yeah, we we put in those little bins. So then we're we're loading up trash can. I mean, we had a lot of like trash or whatever, and we were loading it up into bins and we were rolling it out the back and throwing it in the dumpster, but then we had to get back in. But there was no way to get back in from the back. So we had we had friends like guarding the back door like to let us back in. And then so they got securities like, What are y'all doing back here? We're like, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. We we're we're allowed to do this. Like, I mean, I know you're Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's that? sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Yeah. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. We're gonna make it up as you go. That's information? Yeah. Most of the time. Paul: Well that was us. The only the only downside was we made so we made that concrete, put it into those little trays or whatever. And so those trays, each each of those trays weighed 150 pounds. And Dustin Heiland: yeah, maybe yeah. Paul: and We were like, all right, how are we gonna get this out of here? And we weren't sure how we're gonna get out of there. So we just we hid it behind a curtain and we're like, We'll get back to it later. And then we forgot about it. Dustin Heiland: Some poor staff person that Paul: Some poor janitor somewhere came across that hundred and fifty f two of two one hundred and fifty pound tubs of concrete had to do something about it. Dustin Heiland: That's the nice. Paul: Yeah. So hey, we s we didn't get we got invited back. So that's good. I Dustin Heiland: There you go. Yeah. Paul: I'm gonna do another demo this year. It will not involve concrete mixers on the stage, but we'll do it. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, you need to learn how to downsize it to you know. I did this a while ago, but I I still remember from college classes, when like the admixture guys would come in and they'd they give you like paste and water and you'd mix it up, it'd be real thick and a couple drops of high range, wets it out. So I did that for a this school there's this really cool program in Charlotte where they bring they have a they find a a subdivision being un that's under construction and they bring in hi they bus in high school classrooms of kids and then they they set up stations and so you'll have like the electrical contractors, the the drywall guys, the block guys, and then we had one for the concrete guys. And so we brought, you know, a truck so the the kids could touch you know, touch a truck kind of thing. And then I brought, yeah, cement powder and and high range admix and let all the kids kind of mix up their own little powder throw a couple of drops of high range to see the the cool chemistry that we get to deal with. Like there's all there's the jobs range from, you know, the hourly w wage guy working at the plant to the very professional driver driving the mixer truck to the to the guys in the in the office behind the scenes kinda designing these mixed designs and all the different inputs we get to and cool technologies we get to play with on a day to day. So try to really you know, inspire people to Take a harder look at that. Yeah. Who would've? Paul: That's awesome, dude. Who would have known twenty years ago Ox, the community guy? That's awesome. I just hope I hope this this goes out to more people and everybody start calling you aux like it's funny. I I I may have mentioned this last time, but like I didn't even know what your real name was ever, ever. Like you you graduated and were gone Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah, nobody ever used it. Paul: because you were like a year or two ahead of me and you were gone. And Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: I had I still didn't know what your name was. And then somebody was like, yeah, did you hear Dustin's in North Carolina? I was Who the hell is Dustin? Yeah. Those are good times, man. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Very Paul: so one of the things you mentioned in that little demo was talking telling the kids about the chemistry. And I don't know if there's any product on earth that has more research about its chemistry, but then we just like douse it in water and do whatever to it that we have to do to get it into the form we want it to go into. And you're on the quality side. Like, does does that like not keep you awake at night and just drive you crazy? Dustin Heiland: for sure. It's I mean it's it's the two s you know, it's the it is sometimes it is as tni technical and challenging as it can be and at the other side, you know, on the other side, you know, they've been making this stuff since the Roman Coliseum. Granted that was completely different technology, but you know, like hot cured cement, limestone d powder and and such. But you know, our forefathers were making this a hundred years ago and all had they didn't have all the chemistry and research and knowledge about it. How and however, you know, you yeah, as you get more technical, you you study it more, you can get you can create really awesome things with with the concrete now 'cause when you really understand it, y y when you have to when you're doing you know, we're pouring a forty four story tower right now, trying to get concrete, mixed designs forty four floors in the air through a pump and a spider placer and, you know. ten thousand PSI core walls and seventy five hundred air and train deck mixes that need to be both high early designs but also somewhat green. You know, you have to know how the concrete's gonna perform and and some of that chemistry and then get in the lab and just start testing things. Sometimes you throw stuff at a wall, come from a place of experience and slowly build see what the data tells you is going to work. So Paul: I gotta tell you, I'm doing jobs right now with your company and it kinda hurts my heart a little bit that we're not working together. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, we are we are so expanded now between throughout North North and South Carolina ever since we acquired the those Argos access assets almost two years ago now. Paul: I didn't know that was I didn't know you guys got did that. So quick creek, I'm sorry, Summit before that. So Summit didn't take the Dustin Heiland: Right. Summit was s Summit sold to QuickCrete and at the at the same time that was closing, we took Ready Mix assets within the North and South Carolina markets Paul: interesting. Dustin Heiland: to mainly to bolster our Raleigh market. really help us expand out there. Paul: Yeah, well I had Jake Abels on here from Eagle and you know Sylvie bought them and I didn't realize until talking to Jake and then later talking to Justin Lazabby at Thomas. I didn't know Raleigh was so cutthroat, man. I had no idea. Crazy. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah. It has been probably one of the blessings that I have not had to deal with all the ins and outs of Raleigh. just yeah, the competition, the the material Paul: Mm-hmm. Dustin Heiland: supplies that are available out there, making sure you have quality stuff to build quality things. but those guys are killing it. We are we're building all kinds of high rises and data centers. All over Raleigh and the sand up the down south of Raleigh you have what's called the sand hills, like the Rockingham area. it's where we get a lot of our sand in the in the Carolinas. Paul: Well, you know, the data center stuff is what I'm doing mostly and it's all with Adam and Adam Newwall's great, but I gotta tell you it hurts my heart a little bit that I'm I'm getting to do these projects Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: with your company and like none none of it's with with my guy Ox over here. But Adam's great man. He's he's the man. Dustin Heiland: yeah. He's the best. It's great. It's a privilege to to be able to work with him for him at you know. They say if you're the if you ever feel like you're the smartest guy in the room, you should find a new room. I don't I don't think I'll ever have to worry about that working for working for Adam. Paul: Yeah. Yeah, and concrete wasn't even like his first love either. that that beard he's got, by the way. Holy cow. I had no idea. If you met him in Walmart, you'd think he was like a heavy metal biker guy. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. He's definitely does not want to fit into the box of what people picture when they think of an engineer. Paul: Yeah, yeah. He's he yeah. He absolutely Dustin Heiland: And he has succeeded. Paul: succeeded. What what I appreciate about him, give him a little bit of l more love here. the product that we're making is a calcined clay and but we don't have our own lab. So when we got the product working, we're not our own concrete lab, I mean. And so when we got the product working and I sent it to just a couple of people that I trusted, you know, he was one of the people and The amount of work that he has done to help us like understand our own product. I mean, how how lucky are we that we've got a couple of customers that are willing to do so much work to help us like make sure we're doing the right thing? I just I can't really I really just can't think him enough. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. And and I mean that just I mean, that's Adam for sure and concrete supply even more as a whole trying to to you know, understand new technologies and new materials within the market to not just make ourselves better, but the industry as a whole better, you know. 'Cause any certainly any research we do and success we have will will trickle out into the market and to our competitors, but at the end of the day that's a good thing 'cause now it pushes everybody f everybody forward to do better and be better. So and it's great to w you know, be here and Paul: Yeah, I mean never never it would never share the mixed designs, but that some of that information comes out. There's one piece of information that got out on one of the jobs that we're not supposed to talk about. where Dustin Heiland: So Paul: it's funny they make you sign all these NDAs, dude. To go on to go onto a concrete pour, you had to sign like a twenty Dustin Heiland: Yeah yeah. Paul: page NDA is crazy. And I was like, nope. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, no photos, no recordings, no talking. Paul: No talking, can't mention the client, can't mention that you were ever here. It was hilarious. And it's nobody's reading this NDA. It's so long. And they're like, yeah, like we're gonna process Dustin Heiland: yeah, we just Paul: your ID and make a badge. So you need to hurry up read this. I was like, What what if I don't agree with it? They're like, Then you can leave. Can I do I have time to send it to my lawyer? They're like, No. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, exactly. Like how much do I have to change on this? Paul: Yeah, so it was funny. We're on the way sites and it's hilarious because there's another site like just on the other side of the town that is being run by a different group but the same client. And both Dustin Heiland: Yeah, okay. Paul: places are using our calcine clay in like an experimental level, right? We're we're just to the point where it's getting approved by the clients and then it can be used in full data centers. But Adam's over here running forty percent calcine clay mixes which is Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: crazy. That's crazy. And it's just Dustin Heiland: Hey, he he just goes where the data leads him, you know. Paul: I just I I is he though, or is he a madman? Dustin Heiland: Adam is not one to take risks when it comes to making sure we have strength. You know. That is sometimes we have to reel him in, I I believe, just to be like, Well, you know, ACI says twelve hundred, I'm good right here. Yeah, well, but let's add another little that was la that's lab concrete, you know. We gotta we gotta be ready for field concrete. Paul: Yeah. There you go. Dustin Heiland: Right. Like when the third party labs, you know, hot cure the cylinders or when you know a driver or somebody doesn't necessarily pay as close attention as they should and be in making sure we still gotta build in that safety factor for certain things. Paul: Yeah, I mean right right before you jumped on, we were talking about the curing cylinders on site and how you know study's been done that you lose like twenty to twenty-eight percent of your strength sometimes if you're not curing those cylinders properly in the first 48 hours. People they'll make them and they'll shove them in a cooler and it just it doesn't it it that really doesn't do much. And Dustin Heiland: if I don't look at it. Paul: I mean it keeps the like rain off of it, I guess. But if there's it Dustin Heiland: Right, yeah. Better off in the shade that time of year. I tell yeah, I tell people like you wouldn't want to sit in your car for more than ten minutes. You definitely don't want something that's exothermic generating heat in a cooler, in a hotbox, you know, in the middle of a field in the middle of summer. So get it if you can't if Paul: Yeah, that's a great point. Dustin Heiland: you if you can't run if you can't run power and everything that you need to and you can't put in the you know, the office trailer for the job site isn't closed, then go get a water trough and throw a bag of ice in there. But they like there's been studies done on that. The the the thermal coefficient of water, water doesn't like to change its temperature. So if you can get the water sixty, seventy degrees and then put cylind start putting cylinders in there, there it's gonna stay a lot better or a lot closer to that, you know, max eighty seven seventy eight, whatever it might be. So Paul: Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't I didn't know that. man, learned something today on this pocket. That's why I like having people that are smarter than me. Come on here and and teach me stuff out of the real world. Cause here I am sitting in this office and I'm not here having to figure out how to make these cylinders. Stay at temp. Yeah, so one of our guests that's coming up on this program is going to be Stacia Van Zetten. She's the CEO of Exact Technologies. When they came out, their very first product was these like cooling curing, sorry, curing boxes. And they had like pr they're they were programmable. You could tell them exactly like what temperature you wanted them to cure at inside the box. And their original customers were the pre-cast plants. Because these guys are steam curing their elements and they're pouring. at four o'clock in the in the afternoon and then they want to strip six AM and they're like, All right, what are my seventeen hour strengths? And they needed to be like Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: thirty five hundred PSI 'cause they're gonna cut the strands and that that concrete's gotta hold. Can't blow up. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, we we haul concrete for a few precasters around around Charlotte. And some are set up like any other precaster inside a building and and have everything they need to, and then others are out in a field and and you have those challenges of trying to make a mix design that'll from a ready mix plant that you deliver twenty, thirty minutes away and still, you know, hits strength at eighteen hours. Paul: Are those like are those the in ground double tees? Is that what you're talking about? Or Dustin Heiland: we've poured whole buildings, prefabed, you know, panel wall panels and no double tee well maybe not double tees, but yeah, the columns, the those are single tees or all all Paul: I've been on those Dustin Heiland: the all those different elements out there. Paul: I've been on those pre-cast jobs that they have like they'll have double T beds that are five hundred feet long and they just pull the ready mix truck right up to them and just just go. Just go. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: And those are they're trying to do SEC mixes in those. I mean, you want something super flowable, but you also need, you know, four thousand PSI when you come back the next morning. Dustin Heiland: Right. Yeah. So yeah, ours are somewhere between an SEC and just a high like a high slump mix and a lot of them do use like a VMA and you know, to to really just Paul: yeah. Yeah, for sure. Those those jobs were real interesting. Like whether it was pipe or you know, standard precasts. And when I say pipe, I'm I'm talking about like like SEC type of pipes, not the DryCast stuff. But those guys, like their their biggest like enemy was knowledge of form oil, like the formwork oil. So Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: I would we would get caught out in my previous job, we get called out all the time. to try and help optimize their mixes to eliminate the bug holes. Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: And the acta gel product could do that. But it was it should probably be like your third or fourth thing you're trying. And you would show up and you'd be like, All right, you got gap graded aggregates. Is there any way to fix that? And they're like, no, we just get what you get. I'm like, all right, well, so we can't fix that. And all right, thing number two what are you using for form oil? And like, we're just spraying diesel on it. Like awesome. Can I go watch and see how Jose does this? And you just see him over there just dousing it. Dousin it. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, that's that was what we found is yeah, they they run it they put they yeah, they they put it on way too heavy. It's like you gotta s like Paul: Way too. Dustin Heiland: thin, thin little, you know you know, spray and maybe come back and wipe it down with a rag so you just have a very thin coat 'cause yeah. Paul: Yeah. You want it to sheen you want it to be you want it to sheen. I'm I'm like when you when you're baking in a pan, like do you fill the pan with cooking Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: oil to grease the pan? No. Yeah. Dustin Heiland: We're not deep frying the concrete. We need to we need to saute this concrete. Paul: Country fried concrete. Is that that was a good name for a podcast. How did I not think of that? Dustin Heiland: Ha ha. Paul: Gosh, that is such a good name. Country Dustin Heiland: Is right there the whole time. Paul: fried concrete. God, man. Well, somebody else's name now. Jesus. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: They're gonna do so much better than me. Dustin Heiland: Ha ha. Paul: You know, the bet the best part about this podcast though is it's not like I don't come on here and just do stuff for ratings, right? Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: I do it because I have buddies like you that are smart, love the industry, but come on here, we have a good time. We got w you know, you talk shop and it just turns out there's there's an audience for for that. And it's like great, those are the people I want. You know, you're not gonna see us Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: doing like clickbait stuff or whatever. Dustin Heiland: yeah. No, having the real conversations, that's what will stand the test of time. Paul: Yeah, I hope so. We'll see. but that's what we're gonna do. Regard Yeah, regardless. Hope it works out. did Dustin Heiland: Regardless, yeah. Paul: you get into the into the Pick'em league for the college football pick'em league? Dustin Heiland: I did not I did not get around to signing up. I'm already Paul: No Dustin Heiland: doing a a fantasy football league with a bunch of the with a bunch of concrete people from from NRM C A, so Paul: that's good. Yeah, I got invited to that too, but I can't I I can't. Dustin Heiland: Mm-hmm. Paul: there they're so I don't watch pro football. And I I spend a lot of hours with college football. And with a a ten year old and a six month old, you just you can't take the Dustin Heiland: yeah. You gotta pick your Paul: whole weekend. I just I don't I don't really even though I live in Philadelphia, like I'm not from here. I don't care about the Eagles. My wife doesn't really care about the Eagles, so It's just one of those things like we're we're not watching NFL football. So to pick a fantasy team, like I would and I've done it in the past where I'm like, I like that guy in college. I'm not even paying attention Dustin Heiland: Okay. Paul: if he's any good in the pros. And I forget to set my lineup. And it's just Dustin Heiland: All right. Paul: it's just horrible. I ended up wasting whatever money and and then so then I started getting and back in the day I was getting invited to the leagues because they knew that I was gonna screw up and they were just taking my money. Easy money. Dustin Heiland: They're like easy easy money, yeah. Paul: Yeah, I was a I was a mark. all of a sudden Dustin Heiland: You sound like our you sound like our CEO. He's a big he got his NBA from Alabama. so whenever he's looking at NFL games, he just whichever whichever team has the most Alabama players is the one he picks to win. Paul: Yes. That's what I used to do. Well not not pick to win, but that's who I'm rooting for. That's right. That's right. Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: That's exactly what I do. Man, went Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: to went to Bama for grad school. I love it. I knew I knew I liked you guys. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. See, it's just all around great. Paul: All around great. Did you you know, I don't I know we touched on it, we've known each other. So for those who didn't know, Dustin and I lived together literally twenty years ago at MTSU inside inside the AGR house there. So that was good times until you moved out. You you and Mac and Larry well did did Larry with live with you guys back then? Dustin Heiland: Yeah, Larry and Leland, Flounder Douglas. Paul: I forgot I didn't know Flounder lived with you guys. Man, Flander was great. Whatever happened to Flounder? Dustin Heiland: Yep, all four of us. he's doing he's doing really good. He he does parks department stuff. He was just out fighting fires over the summer. He's back down there near Alliance where Mac has his goat cheese dairy doing doing his parks service stuff. So yeah, he's been Paul: Wow. Fighting fires. He was really smart. I remember you'd always catch Flounder on the couch during when Jeopardy was on. Just acing Jeopardy and just Dustin Heiland: And just acin it. Paul: like, wow. This is crazy. How do you know all this stuff? Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: Yeah, man, he was great. Mac ain't he was great too, man. I I didn't know so Mac has a goat cheese dairy. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, great A goat cheese dairy. He's out at the farmers markets, Knoxville and Chattanooga and all around there selling his his goat cheese. Co a Kowie a Kowie creamery. A Koey Creamery. Paul: I didn't know that. I'll have to look I'll have to look up. I'm sorry, say it again. a Kowie creamer. Shout out, Mac, Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: and a Kowie creamer. If you guys need goat cheese, we know a guy. We got it. Dustin Heiland: We do. It is really it is really good. Paul: Got a guy for that. I'm not a big goat cheese guy. My wife loves it. We've got so many Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: types of cheese in this house. Ugh. Dustin Heiland: Well he does he does I mean he does the standard but he has like the the strawberry basil and the you know, the jalapeno and he does all the different different flavors, small batch, you know. Yeah, well Well now yeah, now you know. Paul: no. I know I did not no. I did not know. Yeah. I was not that I'm not that cultured. Dustin Heiland: Ha ha ha. Paul: That mention from Alabama. We don't know anything about jalapeno goat cheese. Dustin Heiland: Figs and honey, you know, you gotta have a nice a nice array of flavors. Paul: No, we're trying to do nicer th we're trying to do nicer things now. I mean, you know, we're trying to do nicer things now. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah, you gotta take the kids out to the farmers markets. Paul: Well, where do you well, we have one here, just like it just doesn't get like super populated. There was a like a homemade I don't know that was I know if homemade's the right word, but it like a small beef jerky company. And like the dad claimed that the daughter made the beef jerky. I don't know if that's true or not, but Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: she was in the tent and it was Amazing. It was so good. And and and then now now they're gone. And so I don't know, maybe it was her and she got tired of she got tired of doing it. Dustin Heiland: The interests of, you know, fourteen year olds or ten year olds is fleeting at best. Paul: Yeah. But but yeah, I don't know how old she was, but she was young. It was a kid and they had like real packaging and everything. It was it was legitimately delicious and we would get sad when some some of the flavors would be gone because they were so good. And then now now they just disappeared from life. So I don't know, man. I hope. Shout out to that little girl. I hope she's still doing some big Dustin Heiland: Mm-hmm. Paul: things 'cause her jerky was incredible. are you going to concrete works again this year? Dustin Heiland: Yeah, yeah, looking forward to it. there's always there's always such great breakout sessions to understand what's coming what's coming out, what the new standards are gonna be, where the industry's going. Paul: Yeah, it's my favorite it's my favorite event. It's fun. It's a little bit more laid back despite all like the serious people and the serious business that takes place. It it doesn't it doesn't feel too hectic. It doesn't feel overwhelming or anything. Dustin Heiland: Right, it's a good size, it's a good pace. There's not I mean, you do have the you have the excellent exhibition hall to see all the the technology and stuff that's and upgrades that have come out over the year and and how those how they're d how those businesses are doing and how they might be able to help us improve ours and then but the big the big deal is the driver rodeo. We we've taken drivers every year. We had we had one from our sister company place he was he he placed in the top five last year. We are constantly shooting for that, you know, number one spot. But that yeah, that driver rodeo is is so special, just bringing out the the men and women that make our jobs possible, you know, nothing gets concrete doesn't get placed without a driver. So being able to have show them the the respect and admiration for what they do every day and and give them a a chance to compete against the best in the the business. Paul: Well, not only does it not get placed if they don't deliver, literally the face of your company ends up being the driver a lot of times 'cause that's the person they're gonna see most often. That's person delivering your goods and interacting with the finishers. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Their driver is a little bit of everything. They gotta be a little bit of quality control, making sure they're communicating about how much water they have available to add and sales, making sure that they're, you know, easy to talk to and and and pr and putting on a a professional demeanor for for the customer and operations is essential to their job and you know, having good drivers can can certainly make or break a a com a a poor, much less a a company, so Paul: Yeah, I used to give a lot harder time than I do. Than I Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: do now. I did. I did. I did. I'm guilty of that. Dustin Heiland: I think I think we all are early in our careers. Just I I've worked so many different portable jobs and locations across the country it's it's easy to to not the least common denominator, just the most common denominator. But Paul: I d I didn't know you did portable jobs. What the what type of jobs are you doing? Dustin Heiland: Yeah, my first my first job out at MTSU was with US Concrete back then had a portable division called OnSite. apropos name for a portable company. Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nail nailed it. It's almost like country fried concrete. How did we not on site concrete? Dustin Heiland: Yeah. so yeah, I was in Washington DC, building the city center and then went out to Hunter, Oklahoma, which is the middle of nowhere between Eden and Enid and Poncha City, which are also sm yeah. Small cities Paul: about say yeah, yeah. Dustin Heiland: in Oklahoma building wind farms. And then Paul: yeah. Dustin Heiland: and then Lawton, Oklahoma building you know, a strip mall. Just and then we had they also had they were also building wind farms up just south of the Canadian border. And then I I was out I was down in New Orleans finishing up the the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway levee pumping station project. Paul: that's cool. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, that was a that was a really cool project. That was that was a lot of concrete to build to help be the w build the weir system that can actually protect New Orleans from some of these bigger hurricanes. Paul: There the the life of one of these on site portable jobs just rolling from town to town like that. I mean, you pretty much have to be a single guy. Like that is a Dustin Heiland: yeah. Paul: that is a crazy life. Dustin Heiland: It is a s it is definitely a certain lifestyle. to be able to Yeah. All right, you're gonna be here for the next year to three years and then we'll let you know where the next job is. Find out if you Yeah. Paul: Well I mean I I worked with I worked with companies. I I wasn't employed by them, but I was w working with them on jobs that were portable jobs and they they'd be there, you know, three to eight months, just depending on what your position was and how long the poor was gonna be. But three to eight months throw up throwing up warehouses and distribution centers, you know, million square foot place Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: might take eight months. So that's where you are, out in the middle of nowhere, and then we're Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yep. Paul: gonna take you to the next one. State over and then you're gonna stay in another Motel Six. If you're lucky, it's a Motel Six. Dustin Heiland: Right. Yeah. We were lucky they would actually get like they'd buy houses or rent houses with like three or four bedrooms and try to get people kinda that way you have a kitchen and you can actually like You know, grill out on the weekends and stuff and Paul: That's what that's what Joey Bell's old paving company did to the the paving company would rent houses for people to live in. I don't know if they did it for like on site projects, but I guess you're gonna be there for multiple years, that would make sense. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah, I like you said, some of these are really short and fast and then some I mean, we've been building some some factories that take three or four years of concrete. Just, you know, half a million yards. We're actually finishing one up. The last fifty thousand yards is gonna be roller compacted concrete, so which I've Paul: nice. Is that Dustin Heiland: never done before and we are you know, learning at a rapid pace to be able to produce this stuff. we finally ran trial batches last week. It uses a we're not using a central mixer or a dry batch plant, we're using a pug mill with the like the twin shaft paddle blades. Paul: Mm-hmm. Yep. Dustin Heiland: And so that's very interesting to see how all that works out and understanding there's really no testing on RCC other than you know, a nuclear gauge and a moisture content. You don't slump it, you don't you know, you don't check for air, you don't check for unit weight. All the tests I'm I'm so used to. Paul: Yeah, that's a good that's a good point. What about like when you're doing the lab stuff, are you doing abrasion some type of abrasion testing? Dustin Heiland: No, we don't we didn't do any abrasion testing. You're just you find the you do a modified proctor test to find the optimized the optimized gradation and then you and then and the optimized moisture content based on dry materials and then we convert those back to SSD materials to try to get the w because the water You put an you put as much water as you need into it to hit the optimized moisture content. Which is Paul: How how do you know what the optimized moisture kind of is that just when you get a one inch slump? I mean, you said you're not slumping it, but I it's essentially Dustin Heiland: Well so we so you actually c so you actually basically like your your aggregate moisture cook off. You do the you do the same thing but just with the entire concrete batch once it comes out of the plant. And so we we got Paul: Okay. interesting. Interesting. Dustin Heiland: like, you know, instead of a a tiny little pan, we got like turkey fryers and and cast iron pans so that you can actually get a sample large enough to to to cook off and weigh it before, weigh it after and then there's not an absorption. Paul: Are you doing this? Are you doing for the for the pavement? sub base? Yeah, pavement. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paving, yeah. Paul: did you do you know what the number one use of RCC is? Dam construction. Dustin Heiland: Really? Paul: Yeah, so all the all the dams that get built on the rivers, they're telebelting RCC from the ground. So century I mean, maybe they're using a pugmill, but it's usually a central mixer. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: And they'll telebelt it. Up to the top and it's a r it's just like a radial stacker. It just Dustin Heiland: wow. Paul: just spreads it across the ground and a roller rolls it over and then next it just keeps going back and forth and back and forth and letting the rollers usually mol more than one roller is just they're like almost in like a train beside beside each other. Dustin Heiland: Man, that would be that would be so much easier than we're doing a we're doing a d a dam right now, not not the water containing part of the dam, but there was a dirt wall next to the dam that the state came in and said, technically you're in a small seismic zone and if an earthquake hit all that all that dirt would turn to slurry. And so you need to replace Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doing a soil stabilization wall. Dustin Heiland: I'm sorry. Paul: Did they not do they want to do a soil nailing there? They're making it Dustin Heiland: No, they they're like you gotta rip it all out and put in a concrete wall. So we're pouring we're pouring seven foot thick seven foot tall. I I could look up the the dimensions. They're like seven foot by fourteen foot by twenty six foot wall sections. Paul: Seven feet deep? Like thick? Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah. Paul: Holy crap. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. So all mass concrete, all Paul: I was just about to say it's a mass concrete pour. Dustin Heiland: seventy five degree max temperature in the middle of the summer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ten bags of ice our bags of ice are sixteen pounds. So a hundred and sixty pines pounds of ice per yard to get it down to seven like to get it down to sixty five at the plant, so by the time we drive it over there and pump it through the pump. It's not over seventy five degrees. Air entrained, forty five hundred, thirty five percent flash, just you know, your everyday stuff. Paul: I'm about to say, yeah, you're blow you can blow and go on that mix design. Yeah. The ice is the only thing holding you up. What do you you guys have an ice machine at the plant? Dustin Heiland: No, we're having 'cause we have well, we have central mixers on top of it, so you can't preload the Paul: Mm. Dustin Heiland: ice, otherwise you'd have this like you'd be trying to get a one inch slump out of our central mixer, so so we're having to thankfully we we we use basically an entire reefer trailer full of ice for each pour. it it's it's parked right by the plant. The guys go over there, we weigh up all like the entire mix design until the plants like load the truck. And then our guys radio down and say, All right, start the ice and we make sure we get the sixteen hundred pounds on the ag scale and then we hit start load. So it takes about twelve to fifteen minutes to load a truck. Yeah. Paul: I thank you for this information 'cause Adam was giving me a hard time about maybe adding thirty seconds to the process. We're Dustin Heiland: Ha ha ha. Paul: we're about to have a conversation. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: Dang dude. That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah, that's a no. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, it is not ideal. 'Cause then we have to run out of two plants to meet, you know, to try to get eighty yards an hour. Paul: Yeah, yeah. You have to be all staggering and alternating. Are you are you able to do other pores like around those batches or you ha my gosh. Dustin Heiland: No, start about one A. and pour until about until they're done. Thankfully they're Paul: Poor. Dustin Heiland: only pouring once a week, right? Like they can only get, you know, about four hundred yards once a week and just each four hundred yards does two or three wall sections another another three or four months we'll have it licked. Paul: That's a lot of concrete, but it's better than a liquefaction event. Have you ever seen a video of a liquefaction event? Dustin Heiland: I think I have. Yeah, we're just Paul: Crazy. It's hard to believe that it's like that was dirt you could walk on five seconds ago. Dustin Heiland: Right, yeah. Paul: the scariest recent one was actually I don't know if it's technically a liquefaction event, but it's essentially it was like the same thing. That that one in Nepal. Did you see where like the glacier cap like fell off the side Dustin Heiland: yeah. Paul: of the mountain and like landed and just turned all the mud? All the dirt just instantly turned into mud, it liquefied, and then overran the river and just completely destroyed all those towns downriver. Dustin Heiland: man, yeah, that was terrible. Paul: Dude, that was so frightening. The videos they if you told me AI made them, I'd be like, Yeah, obviously. Yeah, this is what what we got AI for. Yeah. Dustin Heiland: Right, yeah, th this is like exactly what it makes. It does not look believable. I did see they found those workers like a week after that were still alive so that Paul: Yeah, I saw that too, but I saw it in connection with like a conspiracy theory. Dustin Heiland: No, so maybe it wasn't. You know, you can't trust what you read on. That's why I gotta go read more than headlines. Paul: No, they found them they found them, but the question was like, what were they doing down? What was that underground tunnel and why were they down there anyway? And it was like, because China it was was Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: doing something. I I forget. It was but it was hilarious. It was like, yeah, Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: they survived because they were working for the Chinese and they've got Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: on the border there, they got some kind of electrical station or something, and they're the sh they're I don't know if they were God, I can't remember the conspiracy now, so I don't want to say the wrong thing, but yeah, it was it was great. I have Dustin Heiland: Ha ha Paul: to do it for well, our next conspiracy corner we've already got lined up, but we'll have to I have to figure out the how the Chinese were to blame for the Dustin Heiland: Ha ha ha Paul: horrible tragedy in Nepal. We're gonna make a conspiracy corner out of that. Yeah. And all the sponsors leave. Dustin Heiland: There you go. Paul: the great thing about this show and the sponsors we have, like they get it. They get it. We're having fun. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: So it's all good. so Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: is your wife coming to Concrete Works again? Dustin Heiland: Yeah, yeah. She's we just booked our flights the other day. We're we're are we're stoked. And then obviously Paul: Yeah, no. Sure. Dustin Heiland: we we saw that the CIM program is gonna have their their meet and greet at the at the event, so we maybe we can see some some old alumni. Paul: Yeah, yeah. Did did we text about that? Dustin Heiland: We did. Paul: Okay, yeah, somebody else sent that to me also. Yeah, that's awesome. I s it's good that they're doing that. I can't believe we haven't had stuff like that at all these conferences. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, I mean CIM's always there and they have a booth and I I you know, I try to make it by and talk to whichever students happen to be be around, but actually having the alumni board and set up a an alumni event that's gonna be it's gonna be really exciting. Paul: Yeah, I d you know, it's right in the middle of dinner on Friday night. I I hope we can get like at least people to come by. 'Cause I mean I'm assuming everybody Dustin Heiland: Well, there's probably yeah, there's probably fourteen other dinners that scheduled for that night, but but Paul: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I'm hoping we can get some people to come by and at least say, hey. Dustin Heiland: Most of most people don't spend more than an hour at any one dinner anyway, I would I would think, so. Depending depends on what kind of business they're doing. At my level, Paul: Yeah, I mean, maybe. It depends Yeah. Dustin Heiland: I'm just dropping in and saying hi and seeing what Paul: At your at your level, you're you're trying to act like you're not a big deal right now. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: Dustin Highland is is a huge deal. I I I do hope Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: people come by. Well, I mean, one thing about the show this year, they changed the format a little bit. They condensed like the actual show hours, which was good. Like it's not a the show's not open for three days, it's open just two days. it's sort of like condensed the schedule down, which I thought was the right move. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, they did I think that I think the the last year was a condensed schedule too, 'cause yeah, it used to be all the meetings were like on Wednesday or Thursday instead of Friday and Paul: yeah, you could spend the whole you could spend the whole week there if you were on like the wrong number of committees. Or you're you're on the wrong Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah, I try to be on as many as I can, but yeah. There's only so many so many you can go to for and there there's a lot to get through. Like the I'm on the research engineering and standards committee, RES committee and that's a four hour meeting. Paul: Four hours. my gosh. Well Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Ha have to go over everything the NRMCA lab has been doing. usually someone from ACA, formerly PCA, is there to talk about what Cement's doing, you know, what what ACI is doing compared to ASTM, compared to Ashto, to see how all those building codes and specifications line up based on how Ready makes producers hope they line up versus all the other interests that that that they have on there, so Paul: Yeah, huh. Interesting. So I'm glad people like you are doing it though, 'cause Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: I can't I can't do it. It just it drives me up a wall. I remember I I was excited to be like one of the young guys to be in the ACI and the ASTMs and all this other stuff. But but then you'd get in these meetings where the the titles were really cool. You know, RES sounds fun. but then Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: you start o arguing over whether the word should be will or shall. I just couldn't Dustin Heiland: Right. Yeah. Yeah, I hear ya, yeah. So I hear that a lot. Paul: I just couldn't take it, man. Honestly, this is not a good use of my time. I it's not a good use of my time. I'm outta here and I've had a bad taste ever since. Dustin Heiland: Thankfully I thankfully or unthankfully, I haven't done ACI at the national level. I only ever we had a really good state chapter in in North Texas and so when I was out in Dallas I was board member through president while I was out there and that was that wasn't spec review, that was bringing you know, bringing a speaker or every other month or to talk to us about something interesting and then and have a lunch and just kinda and set the programming for, you know, ACI certifications and stuff. It was it was very reasonable. Paul: Yeah, well that's what Georg Georgia ACI's a good one too, but they d they're the same way. They're you know, the Georgia Radamix folks, the Carolinas Rady Mix. Dustin Heiland: our Carolina Ready Makes Association is is excellent for sure. We have like NRM C A has as a developing industry leaders program that I that I got to go through early on in my career, but C R C A has their own, like Carolina centric one where those those people get to go to they visit already mixed plants, they go to other people's, you know, aggregate quarries and get a real they take a bunch of different little classes here and there, but they they fit it all within the with within the the industry and stuff so you can 'cause we have a lot we have a lot of that stuff locally, right? You know. The the lightweight aggregates are here, Paul: Yeah, you yeah, you got it all. Dustin Heiland: the Paul: Well the only the only thing you don't Dustin Heiland: C Mint might just be over the border. Paul: well, okay, never mind, 'cause you combine the Carolinas together. But say North Carolina Dustin Heiland: Correct. Paul: doesn't have a cement plant, but you've got one you got several in South Carolina. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah, Harleville's got their share and yeah. Paul: Yeah. So it's fun I could have used that program like fifteen years ago. That would've been nice. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Right, didn't we all? Paul: I learned everything the hard way, man. That's the number one lesson for me is I'm gonna learn it the hard way. That's that's Dustin Heiland: Well yeah, and there's not like there's not always a here's a class to go teach you exactly what you need. That's that's why I've relied on just reading the ACI manuals myself and trying to understand and bouncing ideas off people and or understanding or trying to read all the as many ASTMs as I can, 'cause that's Paul: Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was trained that way too. when I was at LaVarge. They're like, here's the ASTM manual. You need to Dustin Heiland: Mm-hmm. Paul: I need you to read this one. I need you to tell me what's significant about it. And Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: I'd never read I'd never read one before, much less to like dig through the structure. It's written weird. And then I have to find what's significant. Dustin Heiland: See right here it says will instead of shall, so I don't know if we're on the hook. Paul: my gosh, that would have been incredible. no, but it ended up being like, Flash mitigates ASR as long as you use enough Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: of it. And that like ended up being like that was the key thing. There's like, yeah, that was that was actually the whole like it was the most important thing in I forget which which spectr it Dustin Heiland: yeah. Paul: is. Dustin Heiland: Well I know you started your white paper corner, right? I I should probably Paul: Yep. Yeah. Dustin Heiland: actually read the white papers, but I'm real bad about just jumping to the conclusion and going, what did you actually I'll I'll trust your test methods were were were were were scientifical. Paul: I'll trust your test methods. I can't I can't trust the test methods though because I don't I don't know that they did the right test and then to say, we've concluded that this is this concrete is dir is more durable clearly because it's higher strength. Like, hold on, that's not how you calculate durability. Dustin Heiland: yeah, that's Paul: So I can't just jump to the conclusions. I gotta I gotta react. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Well yeah, I had to go down that road of like what is how does ACI define durability and what Paul: Yeah. Dustin Heiland: you know 'cause engineers are constantly wanna, you know, specify lower water cement ratios when, you know, you have your th A CI three hundred eighteen exposure class that defines durability based on freeze thaw and and water and chlorides and those things, but then which don't have really unless it's exterior needs air, it doesn't really have a water cement ratio and and so then you go, there's an ACI for durability, I think it's two fourteen. And essentially all they say is like or at least what I got out of it is that, you know, as long as it like water cement ratio determines strength and strength determines durability. So I was like, well, that's it's kind of summing it up a little bit. Paul: I mean, dude, here's the thing. Bumper stickers create movements. All right. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: So if you can fit whatever you need to say in a bumper sticker, which you just did very neatly there, Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: that's how that's how things get spread. So, you know, I just did white paper of the month a couple weeks ago on Duff Abrams' original bulletin, and that's what he said. He said Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: it's very clear that water spinning ratio governs strength. And he believed also that durability w stems from that. And it's not the problem is it's not entirely wrong. It's just not entirely right either. And that's where you get into like this weird area. Dustin Heiland: Right. Right. Well, you gotta think about it both ways. Like, okay, well water cement ratio determines strength and strength determines durability, but provided I have four thousand PSI, then whatever that water cement eight r ratio equals, then therefore I have durability. So I don't necessarily need to be a five or a four five if I can get four thousand with a with a five or a five five, right? Paul: Yeah, or or is it when we're talking about you you said the right thing a minute ago. What is durability? Like that's a Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: broad statement. And Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: if it's freeze thaw, then I don't care what your water smith ratio is, you better have some air. Have Aaron trained in that joker. Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: if if your durability is like, I I need this to be a abrasion, yeah. Dustin Heiland: Well you mentioned like AS ASR, right? Like yeah, you need fly you better put some well, maybe you don't need ASR to test your aggregates, but or you maybe you don't need flash. Paul: But but if you know you have reactive aggregates or potentially reactive aggregates, yeah. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: Load that joker up twenty, twenty five percent at whatever the local state or code will allow you to load Dustin Heiland: Right, yeah. Paul: up and put that ash in there, mitigate that. Yeah. So Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: durability means different things to different Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: people and you gotta quantify that. So I'm going through that right now. So the calcine clay that we're making. Our ASTM C six eighteen is C eighteen ninety seven. We should get that report next week. And The next thing that we wanted to do was a suite of durability tests. But there's like a thousand things you could do. And I think there's Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: about six things I want to do. And then we'll see how much of it we actually get done. But if we can get some of that done by the end of the year, because man, when the Cal Sign Clay gets spec'd on these data center jobs, I just I just want the engineer of record to like feel comfortable. Like, Okay. Well somebody at least went through the trouble of like looking at all these things. Dustin Heiland: Right yeah, that reminds like I had to go through a water treatment plant spec review when type one L cement first came out and that engineer wanted, you know, the old one fifty testing to see the C three A contents and the the mortar bar expansion stuff and it's like, well that stuff's not that doesn't fall under a five ninety five and trying to make sure the engineer was comfortable with the cement for the for the mix design took took some Took a few emails back and forth before we got there, but Paul: Ye well and but see here's the thing is I can't well it's not that I can't. I don't know that I should be the person emailing because I I'm obviously biased. I want the mix to Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: contain the calcium clay. So he's Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Paul: gonna feel like I'm trying to sell him something. But I mean, you and I on here know that I would never try to put something in concrete that and I think community listening to this knows well enough that I'm always gonna do what's best for the concrete. But that engineer of record might not know me. And so Dustin Heiland: Right. Paul: he he might think I'm trying to come at it from A biased position that's you know influencing the way I'm thinking about this concrete and its performance over time. But that that's not the case at all. And so my goal is to have enough testing done from a third-party certified lab that whatever questions the engineer of record is going to have, like there's already you know somewhat of a solution. And he can say, that answers that question, Dustin Heiland: Right. That's Paul: that answers that question, that answers. And you know, we'll just do our best to show him that like, yeah, we did our due diligence. It's not just at them and dusting a concrete supply. They're like, Yep, it works. It's like, okay, well you can take their word for it, but here's also a bunch of tests to back it up. Dustin Heiland: Yeah. Yeah, engineers want the data for sure. Problem is knowing which testing they're gonna be. Paul: I d yeah. And you don't know. That's why I'm saying excuse that's why I don't know that we're gonna do all of Because sometimes it's like, well, why don't we just wait and see what they want? But that if you do that, you could be putting yourself back three months or more, six months. Dustin Heiland: yeah, those yeah, those tet yeah, so that yeah. What saulfates is six months if not eighteen or something? Paul: If not yeah, if not a year. Yeah. But you know, the they might not care about sulfates for data centers. What but there's other things that they might care about. And we just gotta do our best to to be responsible. And that's what we're doing as a company, is just being r responsible and being responsive. So if the engineer says they need something, like, yes, sir, like we'll go we'll go get what you need. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, exactly. Paul: I mean, what I mean, what what else am I gonna do? Trying to Dustin Heiland: Right. Just yeah. Paul: convince him that no, no, no, bro. Trust me. Trust me. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, yeah. That is never yeah. Only this ever works. Paul: No, that doesn't work with the engineer's record. But Dustin Heiland: Engineers. Paul: dude, this has been an absolute pleasure catching up with you. I can't wait to see you in October at Concrete Works. Come by the Slump Monkey studio. They're on site. We'll chop it up again. Dustin Heiland: Yeah, man. For sure. Can't wait. Paul: If anything anything else you wanna leave the people with? Is there any way they can get in touch with you if they if anybody maybe there's somebody in Charlotte right now, it's like, gosh, he sounded great. I should get my concrete from them. How can they how can they find you? Dustin Heiland: they can just go to our our website. make sure I get this web address right for Paul: Bro, I have messed up our web address for our company so many times 'cause we have a a dot us website for the main job that I have. Dustin Heiland: w yeah. Paul: And so I always say dot com. Dustin Heiland: concrete supply co dot com. we're available in all the all the major and a lot of the minor markets around North and South Carolina. Paul: Yep, for sure. They own North South Carolina. Don't let them be so modest. and if you want to get in touch with us here at the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast, you're welcome to reach out to me directly. Admin at slumpmonkeys.com. That's M-O-N-K-E-Y-S dot com. You can always visit our website, www.slumpmonkeys.com. When you get done visiting concrete supply countries. dot com and ordering your concrete and getting in touch with those guys like Dustin in the Carolinas. Jump on over to our site, view all the fun things over there. Thank you everyone for listening. We will see you on the next episode. Dustin Heiland: Thanks, Paul.