Anyone ever use recycled concrete?

Tinkerer said:

Interesting about recycled bricks.
There is a brick factory 4 miles from me. I watched several hundred loads of bricks get buried in field 1/2 mile from the factory.
What a waste !

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Wow, that is a waste. The crushed up brick at all 20 of our plants was either sold, or reused in newly made brick. We called it "grog", it was crushed finer, and added back into the wet clay brick mixture. This coarse material, helped heat transfer through the brick better when it was fired in the kiln. If we ran out of crushed brick, then we had to add a costly material called "calcine". This was a partially fired material we made in a rotary kiln, and making it burned lots of natural gas. Another name for it was "clinker".
The plant that buried the brick, must have had a huge amount of waste brick, or did not recycle it back into their new product. With that kind of waste, I don't know how they stayed in business.

John C. said:

I've been hearing the ecology people around here are saying that the stuff affects any water that percolates through it and is bad for fish. The asphalt grindings are coveted but the crushed concrete, not so much. Maybe the construction guys can provide some better information.

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I'm guessing the concrete would have the powder and dust all through it. Concrete and lime would raise the PH of water maybe? Asphalt is made from oil. We don't recycle asphalt here. They screen the millings and use it for shoulder material after we pave. Depending on how sticky it is, it can be hard to grade, but it makes great shoulder material once rolled. I know when they use the train, they add a concrete like powder, and they have to put silt fence all around the area where they store it on site. Never need silt fence for asphalt millings laydown area. I guess they do recycle it when they use the train.

Recycled concrete is great, i've never ran into it setting up though, I kinda wish it would a bit actually, it turns up easy from equipment at my yard like gravel. But water drains through better and it doesn't get muddy nearly as bad as gravel. That is so cheap though, I think it's about $20/ton here and that's only crushed to 65mm generally.

Tinkerer said:

Interesting about recycled bricks.
There is a brick factory 4 miles from me. I watched several hundred loads of bricks get buried in field 1/2 mile from the factory.
What a waste !

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Wow. Around here they could've sold the bricks as seconds.

Built a house in 2000 and bought Bickerstaff's (which is now owned by Boral) seconds and non-spec runs since the brick was going to be mortar washed. The house looked like a calico cat which had the neighbors raising an eyebrow but once the mortar wash went on it looked like a million bucks.

CM1995 said:

Wow. Around here they could've sold the bricks as seconds.

Built a house in 2000 and bought Bickerstaff's (which is now owned by Boral) seconds and non-spec runs since the brick was going to be mortar washed. The house looked like a calico cat which had the neighbors raising an eyebrow but once the mortar wash went on it looked like a million bucks.

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Yes, that is a good way to use brick that comes out of the kiln in some off color. We had a part of the plants where they actually would take all the brick "mistakes", throw it in a rotary tumbler, and dump in a cement slurry. The coated brick was stacked wet on pallets and allowed to dry before selling it. We called this "slurry brick" or "rumble brick". When a house was built with it, it gave the house kind of a gray brick color, with color highlites showing from the original brick colors. Kind of a nice look, and different than other nearby houses in a new development.

My former neighbor does demolition. Old bricks are more popular than new and the old "clinker" bricks bring the most money. He would have crews cleaning off bricks and strapping them on pallets. I think he made good money selling them to a brick outfit.

As long as they have good mags on the plant I don't have an issue with recycled 'crete. It's like everyone else said and metal starts to slip past I have issues with it, I pay enough in tires, don't need help.

I had another brief encounter with a recycled glass product. One needle was all it took to make that very unpopular. It was physically great for wall backfill. No way to keep junkie's stainless needles out of it.

mowingman said:

Yes, that is a good way to use brick that comes out of the kiln in some off color. We had a part of the plants where they actually would take all the brick "mistakes", throw it in a rotary tumbler, and dump in a cement slurry. The coated brick was stacked wet on pallets and allowed to dry before selling it. We called this "slurry brick" or "rumble brick". When a house was built with it, it gave the house kind of a gray brick color, with color highlites showing from the original brick colors. Kind of a nice look, and different than other nearby houses in a new development.

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MM I built a 60+ unit townhome project back in the mid 2000's that had a brick very similar to what you describe. It was a tan colored wash which gave the mortar wash looked just didn't have the labor and material cost to mortar wash.