John Deere & Co. is dedicated to those who work the land: farmers, ranchers, landowners, builders and loggers. The heavy-equipment manufacturer reaches out across the world to customers through local dealerships and regional distribution centers like the McDonough, Ga., facility, which is located just outside of Atlanta and serves customers in the Southeastern states.
The McDonough distribution center’s concrete floor had become uneven over time, with large hollow areas (holes) forming where joints met. However, because the business of getting needed parts to customers could not be disrupted, repairs had to be done quickly—and during limited time frames each day.
To make the floor level again, Engineered Solutions of Georgia, based in Marietta, had to fill 64 holes in the slab. Because reducing downtime was crucial, the contractor used Rapid Set® Concrete Mix to fill the holes. This concrete repair and restoration product sets in 15 minutes and is ready for traffic in one hour.
Concrete Mix is a high-performance blend of Rapid Set hydraulic cement and quality aggregates that achieves fast strength gain, high durability and low shrinkage. The multipurpose product is workable and fast-setting, making it ideal for repairing busy industrial floors like the John Deere distribution center. It is similar in appearance to traditional concrete, with a slight light gray/beige color variation, and is applied using regular installation equipment and methods.
For this repair project, the crew repaired each hole by first cutting out a 2x2x1-foot section of slab surrounding it and then removing six inches of dirt around and underneath the section. They used 10 bags of Concrete Mix per hole (one 60-pound bag yields approximately 0.5 cubic feet), which resulted in 640 bags for the entire floor. They mixed the product with water in a five-gallon bucket using a heavy-duty ½-inch drill and mixing paddle.
The repaired areas were water-cured, and then finished with a steel trowel. From start to finish, it took just a little more than a week to level the existing floor and put the distribution center back in business. A rapid turnaround resulted in another very happy owner.
