Founded in 1989, Griffith Construction (GCI) has served the Southwest Florida construction industry for over 18 years with the utmost integrity and professionalism. GCI specializes in all aspects of concrete construction, including: Concrete Block, Concrete Footings, Concrete Pumping, Slab on Grade, Tie Beams and Tilt-Up construction.
With a team of over 130 highly trained and skilled professionals, GCI continues to set the standard for efficiency and quality of work. GCI has the manpower to tackle any project of any size and complexity.
TILT-UP
Tilt up or tilt-slab is a type of building, and a construction technique using concrete. The process resembles barn raising and is a very cost effective solution for low buildings.
The Process
First, modular concrete elements (i.e. walls, columns, structural supports, etc.) are formed. These elements are often formed on a concrete slab that is the building floor or a temporary concrete casting surface near the building footprint. After the concrete has cured, the elements are tilted from the horizontal position to the vertical with a crane and braced into position until the remaining building structural components (roofs and intermediate floors) are secured.
Structure
Concrete walls are very heavy and are most often engineered to work with the roof structure and/or floor structures to resist all forces (load-bearing walls). The connections to the roof and floors are usually steel angles and studs that were secured into the forms prior to concrete placement. These attachment points are bolted or welded. The upper attachment points are made to the roof trusses. Interior walls may be present for additional stiffness in the building structure as necessary, known as shear walls. Insulation can be applied to either side of the panels or cast inside sandwich panels. Concrete has high mass, which regulates interior temperature (thermal mass) and provides soundproofing.
TIE BEAMS
The tie beam is a poured reinforced concrete lintel that runs around the top of the external walls. It is the tie beam that gives the building the rigidity it requires. The roof is actually tied into the construction with metal straps, which run through the tie beam and exterior walls, into the foundations.
CONCRETE SLAB
A concrete slab is a common structural element of modern buildings. Horizontal slabs of steel reinforced concrete, typically between 10 and 50 centimetres thick, are most often used to construct floors and ceilings, while thinner slabs are also used for exterior paving. In many domestic and industrial buildings a thick concrete slab, supported on foundations or directly on the sub soil, is used to construct the ground floor of a building.
The Process
Slabs are built on the building site using formwork - a type of boxing into which the wet concrete is poured. If the slab is to be reinforced, the rebars are positionined within the formwork before the concrete is poured in. Plastic tipped metal, or plastic bar chairs are used to hold the rebar away from the bottom and sides of the formwork, so that when the concrete sets it completely envelops the reinforcement. For a ground slab, the former may consist only of sidewalls pushed into the ground. For a suspended slab, the former is shaped like a tray, often supported by a temporary scaffold until the concrete sets.
The former is commonly built from wooden planks and boards, plastic, or steel. On commercial building sites today, plastic and steel are more common as they save labour. On low-budget sites, for instance when laying a concrete garden path, wooden planks are very common. After the concrete has set the wood may be removed, or left there permanently.
In some cases a former is not necessary - for instance, a ground slab surrounded by brick or block foundation walls, where the walls act as the sides of the tray and hardcore acts as the base
Footing foundation
Footing foundations consists of strips or pads of concrete (or other materials) which transfer the loads from walls and columns to the soil or bedrock. Embedment of spread footings is controlled by several factors, including development of lateral capacity, penetration of soft near-surface layers, and penetration through near-surface layers likely to change volume due to frost heave or shrink-swell. These foundations are common in residential construction and in many commercial structures
CONCRETE PUMPING
A concrete pump is a tool for transferring liquid concrete by pumping. There are two main classifications of concrete pumps.
The first type of concrete pump is attached to a truck. It is known as a 'truck-mounted boom pump' because it uses a remote-controlled articulating robotic arm (called a 'boom') to place concrete with pinpoint accuracy. Boom pumps are used on most of the larger construction projects as they are capable of pumping at very high volumes and because of the labor saving nature of the robotic arm.
The second main type of concrete pump is mounted on a trailer, and it is commonly referred to as a 'trailer pump' or 'line pump'. This pump requires steel or rubber concrete placing hoses to be manually attached to the outlet of the machine. Those hoses are linked together and lead to wherever the concrete needs to be placed. Trailer pumps normally pump concrete at lower volumes than boom pumps and are used for smaller volume concrete placing applications such as swimming pools, sidewalks, and single family home concrete slabs.
Concrete Block
Blocks of cinder concrete ("cinder blocks" or "breezeblocks"), ordinary concrete ("concrete blocks"), or hollow tile are generically known as Concrete Masonry Units (CMU)s. They usually are much larger than ordinary bricks and so are much faster to lay for a wall of a given size. Furthermore, cinder and concrete blocks typically have much lower water absorption rates than brick. They often are used as the structural core for veneered brick masonry, or are used alone for the walls of factories, garages and other "industrial" buildings where such appearance is acceptable or desirable. Such blocks often receive a stucco surface for decoration. Surface-bonding cement, which contains synthetic fibers for reinforcement, is sometimes used in this application and can impart extra strength to a block wall. Surface-bonding cement is often pre-coloured and can be stained or painted thus resulting in a finished stucco-like surface.
The primary structural advantage of concrete blocks in comparison to smaller clay-based bricks is that a CMU wall can be reinforced by filling the block voids with concrete with or without steel rebar. Generally, certain voids are designated for filling and reinforcement, particularly at corners, wall-ends, and openings while other voids are left empty. This increases wall strength and stability more economically than filling and reinforcing all voids. Another type of steel reinforcement, referred to as ladder-reinforcement, can also be embedded in horizontal mortar joints of concrete block walls. The introduction of steel reinforcement generally results in a CMU wall having much greater lateral and tensile strength than unreinforced walls.
TYPES OF CONCRETE BLOCK
