There’s a wide choice available when it comes to selecting concrete for use on your farm. But are you making the right decision when it comes to the agricultural concrete you use?
At this week’s National Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Tullamore, Co. Offaly, AgriLand caught up with Roadstone’s Thomas Holden.
The company’s technical manager discussed the specifications used to determine what type of concrete farmers should use to be eligible for grant aid under schemes such as TAMS (Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes).
Holden said that S100 is the technical mineral specification for concrete used in agricultural structures; this specification is required by the Department of Agriculture to clear any grant applications and payments.
“If you are building any grant-aided structure, you have to use concrete to the S100 specification or the grant won’t be paid.
“You have to go to your concrete supplier and get a document stamped by the supplier to say that it supplied you with S100 concrete or you won’t get the grant.”
He added: “Farmcrete is our branded product for S100.” There are two specs available in the range – Mix A and Mix B.
Mix A is a 45N concrete, which is a rather strong concrete.
Holden also explained why this strength is so important, saying: “Farmyards are a very aggressive environment for concrete. You have silage effluent, manures, detergents and acids out of the milking parlour.”
Machinery, he added, is also getting bigger and the loads being applied are growing.
“45N concrete is a very durable concrete; that’s why it was specified in S100 – durability is required.”
This concrete, he said, is suitable for walls, silos, silo slabs, silo aprons and silo channels.
Silo channels get the worst of the aggression, as silage effluent flows through. It gets a concentration of effluent and it has to be the strongest – that’s 45N.
On Mix B, a 37N concrete, he said: “That’s suitable for slurry tanks for silage effluent to go into. But, the 45N product is your main high-strength, durable concrete.”
In addition, Holden said that there has always been an interest in Farmcrete – especially when grants come in.
Roadstone partnered with AgriLand to bring you live coverage of this year’s National Ploughing Championships in Screggan, Tullamore, Co. Offaly.
To find out more about Farmcrete visit Roadstone at: Block 2, Row 6, Stand 156.
Holden said: “We hope that the majority of people at the event will call into our stand and have a look at our products.
“We are fully manned with technical people to talk about all of our products.”