Concrete is one of the most used building materials in the world. Certainly, it is a heavy material, but some 25 billion tons of it are produced every single year in the world. That’s a lot of concrete – and equates to 3.8 tons for every person on the planet!
Concrete dates back to Roman times, believe it or not, when they used hydraulic lime as a binding agent. After the decline of the Roman Empire, the use of concrete disappeared until it was resurrected in the early 19th century when they began to use Portland cement instead of the hydraulic lime. This led to a great increase in the use of concrete for building foundations, as well as for bridges and harbours. In the late 19th century, iron rods began to be added to concrete when it was poured, thus increasing the strength of it considerably.
A big advantage of using concrete is that it is fairly cheap to produce, and the materials required – sand, gravel, and limestone to produce the cement – are available almost anywhere in the world. Concrete can also be mixed using the ingredients in different quantities depending upon the use to which it is being put.
For many years, on building sites, concrete was mixed in a small concrete mixer on the site. This is hard work for the labourers involved and will also produce batches which don’t exactly match, because shovelling sand and cement and gravel into a cement mixer is not a precise procedure. In fact, it is fair to say that every batch will be different.
Then in 1913, the first batch of ready mixed concrete was produced and delivered to a site in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Over the next few years, more processors began to be set up, and the first ready-mixed company in the UK was founded in 1930. By the 1960s there were a number of producers across the UK.
Today, if you need ready mixed concrete in Gloucestershire and the surrounding counties, then you need to call us at Top Mix. The advantages are many, not the least of which is that you can have batches delivered to the site exactly when you want them. They will also be an exact match, because of the way that we produce concrete. That is, unless you require a different mix of a batch for one reason or another. We can produce whatever you want.
Another advantage of using ready mixed concrete in Gloucestershire is that it costs less. As a major producer, at Top Mix we buy all our materials in bulk, so those savings get passed on to you.