Latest / The Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast / 016 - Ben Lentine
Transcript
- Lentine - 101726: And welcome into the Slump Monkeys Concrete Podcast. Well on our way to being the world's number one concrete podcast. And the only way you get to be number one is when you have guys like Ben Lintinny from Heidelberg Smith on your show. Ben, thanks for coming on. Thanks, Paul. Paul always hypes me up. I don't know why. I feel like I'm pretty average, but I appreciate it, Paul. You're absolutely you're one of my favorite people. I know. You're one of my favorite people. You're a really good golfer. Yeah. And you actually know you're talking about when you talk about cement and you put those things together and you know I mean you're a Jaguars fan which is weird but other than that, pretty pretty solid guy Yeah, I feel like I have all my bases covered. I'm a I'm a solid golfer and I know about cement. That's pretty much all I need to know about in this industry. That's all you need to know. I think I'm pretty good. I met another Jaguars fan today. Really? Yes. Okay. Mashmeyer Concrete. Okay, well they're yeah, but they're from, you know, down there. But but he's in Tampa. Okay. And so but now he lives in Atlanta. Okay. So he might be the only Jaguars fan in Atlanta. Yeah. And so I told him, I was like, man, you gotta meet Ben, but he will never watch the game with you. But No, I need to watch, you know, I'm I'm gonna be playing a little bit of hooky tomorrow morning because the Jaguars Do play in London at 830 Central. So I don't think is there anything happening in the morning though? I don't know. I actually don't know. Actually, yeah, we're I didn't even look because I already know what I'm doing. Well, so we're filming this right now. We're live at Concrete Works. the Alabama, Tennessee game is happening right now. Third quarter just ended. I was just watching it over there, the the the other booth had it on. they were losing 18 to 10, I believe. thanks for that. Yeah. That's a good way to good way to start the podcast. So the the main thing I wanted to talk to you about was like, what's the most exciting thing that's happening in the industry for you right now? What do you look out and you're like, this is the thing that I'm most excited to get to work on? Yeah, I'm gonna say like c just collaboration with our customers and with the contractors on the switch back to type one two cements mostly. in my region, Northeast Reed region, we are, you know, actively going to switch back to type one two cement predominantly and I think I think you know just There's already some word out there about how it's not the same one two cement or whatever, which obviously is not true, but you know, we we we have already got word of that. And so we just want to kind of don't you know this is finer now than it used to be. Yeah, no, exactly. So, you know, I I I think it's just, you know, trying to do things the right way and make sure that questions are a are are answered and people know what to expect and whatever, because I think, you know, we we've had many producers out there that actually said that they had no issues at all with one L and how they don't want to go back. But I think just from a business standpoint and it's the direction is that we're gonna go. So I think just helping people out with that, collaboration, I think this industry is gonna do a lot better with collaboration this time around. So it's been a hot topic ever since you know What one L or any new product has been coming out over the last couple years has been the collaboration, so I'm pretty excited about that. Well I love to hear that because a couple years ago you sat in my house. We recorded a different podcast and we were we had a pretty frank discussion about 1L. Sure. And you said then that like the number one mistake we made was we didn't go out and make sure everyone had experience together before we roll just should you know completely rolled it out in the market. We should have taken a little slower, made sure guys maybe training's not even the right word, just exposure. And so if they had concerns, we could have solved it then up front before you know it became a massive problem. Yeah, and it's I think all of that sounds good and and and it it it can be done I would say for the most part. However it's hard to to fully get everybody comfortable all at once. You know, that is a that that is a challenging thing to do. You know, everyone's like, you know, they always say like, you know, we weren't ready, we weren't prepared or whatever, but it's really hard to get to every single person all at the same time. We are, you know, I would say us as a cement, you know, indu like the cement company, and then also like the concrete companies, they're not the experts in finishing. Like, I'm not telling a finisher how to do his job. Now I can tell them what to look for, but you know, a lot of times like it's not gonna be the the exact same, and it shouldn't be the exact same, right? We've got different products in there, and not just like cement. There's other things in concrete now that is different than it used to be. Well, that's what we were talking about at lunch the other day, is like, wow, people were actually using more. More mansan they've ever used. The water contents are lower than they've ever been, the mixes are leaner than they've ever been. Exactly. And the chemicals are advanced as well. So this is a different concrete today than what you were using 10, 15, 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I actually my family owned ReadyMix operations when I was growing up, and I actually went back and I looked at some of the batch tickets that they were having. And you know, they're 4,000 PPSI mixes, every single one of them has like 650 cement in it. Nowadays it's like 650. Yeah. So nowadays it's like, you know, which I get it, that's definitely way too high. However, even the concrete 15, 20 years ago is a lot different than the concrete is now, just based on the cement contents and like you said with the man sands, different chemicals and the and the chemistries of these chemicals, you know, there's so many things going on you know, I think hopefully getting back to the basics of one, two can kind of solve. Some of these problems, but I don't know. I'm under the assumption that there's so many else, so many other things that are changing all at once that I don't think all these issues are just gonna go away. Did y'all talk about some of this at the RES meeting? Yeah, yeah, RES definitely, this was part of it. I actually brought up in RES that actually in my market, I deal with multiple cement plants, and two of our cement plants in that region never switched to type 10. They were all type 12. One the hot topics about the durability concerns with 1L was the increased amount of surface scale. And with that, I actually, when I was in a market where we didn't have really any type 1L cement. So I would be going out to jobs all the time and looking at scaled concrete over the last like three, four years, and none of it had 1L in it. So this is not, you know, there are many other factors, whether it's the design or the curing or the finish or assault damage or just the timing or the specifications. Concrete being placed that was causing those issues was just not cement related at all. Now don't get me wrong, could 1.2 or type 1 be a little bit more forgiving? Possibly. You know, does 1L maybe make you have to do things more by the book? Possibly. But in all those situations, it was type 1 or type 2 to cement, and they scaled just like everyone's been complaining about with all the with with 1L. But I say that because I actually created a presentation. And it's a scaling, concrete flat work presentation. And basically it goes over multiple different case studies. And all these case studies, I go through the concrete properties and the timing of the year and whether it's salt damage or this and that. And in the crowd, a lot of people always like, they're always like, already thinking in the back of their head, okay, this has got to be 1L, it's got to be 1L. And at the I have like the punchline, I was like, all these have something in common, it's none of them had type 1L. So I think it's showing that these problems exist, it's not just 1L. So there's something else going on but I but I'm hoping to build some of that trust back with the contractors by by by going off type one two. I think you're doing it all the right way and I love that you're at RES because here at the NRMCA it that meeting is dominated by ReadyMix, which makes sense with the NRMCA. Sure. And when I was talking to Justin Lazenby, I I I asked him, I go, how many SMET guys are in there with you having these conversations? He said the same thing. we all need to be involved together for sure. how many of the Cement guys are in the company? He said one. Yeah. Ben Lintonny. And I was like, of course he is. Well, I think it's extremely important, and that kind of goes back to the collaboration in there. I know Michelle Wilson from ACA was there, and she was representing the Cement companies very, very well. But it is important to have that collaboration, have the right communication and the trust factor built in as the industry evolves. I mean, this industry is gonna continue to evolve at a rate that we haven't seen. In this industry. Like this industry, you know, it it it has been a lot of the same for a long time, and now all of a sudden, there are so many new technologies out there. I I'm walking around this convention center now, and it's like, even from last year, there are so much more technologies out there, so many new products that people are having and promoting, and it's just it's crazy all the changes that are happening so rapidly. So people need to be educated, and I think sometimes you just got to take a step back because I don't know. So change is going to happen. I just think it's maybe we gotta slow down a little bit. Two weeks to flatten the curve. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But there are a lot of changes, but that also makes it an exciting time to be in the industry, and I think we're lucky to have you here to help guide us through it. Guys, this has been an absolute phenomenal. You see now, see he came on here saying like I don't know why Paul hypes me up and and then you hear that and it's like that is why Ben Lantinney is the man representing Steel Club on the shirt. Shout out shout out Steel Club up in Pennsylvan Pennsylvania brother thank you so much for coming on here. Thanks Paul it means everything.