What's New

ACQUISITION OF TARGET PRODUCTS ENABLES THE QUIKRETE® COMPANIES TO EXPAND INTO WESTERN CANADA

INDUSTRIAL MORTAR DIVISION

For more information, contact:

Target British Columbia -  Jack Torok @ 1.800.575.7700 

Target Alberta - Tom Bartley  @ 1.800.661.8482

International Construction Services, contracted by the Sonora Lodge in Campbell River BC were working on a deck for their resort.  After speaking with Target's Jack Torok, the product Portland Expanding Grout was recommended for the tops of the columns (as a leveling base) and also between the pre-cast panels to fill the space between the panels. Installation was successful and progressed slightly ahead of schedule. Portland Expanding Grout is working very well for International Construction Services. Here are some photographs of the completed project. 

A long awaited product, Target’s new Vertical/Overhead Repair Mortar has been in formulation and testing for over three years. Helen Zeng (R& D Senior Materials Engineer) had managed to formulate a product that was sticky enough to be applied overhead yet still be workable that it could be troweled and finished to a smooth appearance. The question…were there enough sales to justify it’s existence? 

The answer came by way of a phone call from Phil Beedle, Senior Construction Engineer from BC Hydro to Jack Torok (Target's Industrial Sales Technical Representative). BC Hydro’s power station, The Cheakamus Power Generating Station, 10 kilometers west of Squamish, was constructed in 1959 to supply the timber mills of Squamish and send excess power to Vancouver. By 2005 it had grown to supply power to the entire communities of Squamish, Whistler and still send excess power to Vancouver. Unfortunately the exterior of the plant was left largely neglected and was in bad need of refinishing. BC Hydro originally bantered around Shotcreting the wall, but this would be next to impossible considering they are situated on a salmon spawning river. The V/O Repair Mortar made perfect sense. The first trial of the V/O Repair Mortar was done in October of 2004 on an exposed concrete wall at the plant to determine if the product could withstand a cold winter along with the varying temperatures that occur in that valley. After a site visit in January and again in May, the product came through with flying colours. BC Hydro was sold on using the V/O Repair Mortar. They ordered up 5 pallets of the material and began and completed the entire job in little over a week. The application crew stated that they have never used a product that mixed up as easy and was as quick to use with excellent results as Target’s V/O Repair Mortar.

Bridge Deck Repairs  - Kelowna Floating Bridge

The Kelowna Bridge deck (Constructed 1957) was recently inspected for signs of wear and to no one's surprise required extensive pontoon work as well as bridge deck joint repairs along with repairs to dilapidated concrete.

Cortez Construction - Kamloops BC, consulted with their primary supplier, National Concrete of Kamloops as to products that could be used for this type of bridge deck repair. National Concrete’s Representative, (Norm Meyer) along with Target’s Richard Atkinson advised using Target’s Traffic Patch Coarse for their purposes. The Consulting/Engineering firm was West Mar Consultants of North Vancouver. The concurrent testing by West Mar showed that Traffic Patch did meet all the requirements for this job.

The contract was awarded to Cortez Construction of Kamloops, based upon their using Target’s Traffic Patch. 

Target's Jack Torok went to Kelowna to view the application of Traffic Patch on Thursday June 17, 2004. Cortez Construction had already used approximately 31 pallets of Traffic Patch for the two outside lanes and were half way through the middle lane requiring an additional 15 pallets. 

Jack joined them on the middle span at 1:00AM. They had jackhammered the mapped out areas and were applying cement/sand slurry prior to placing and finishing the Traffic Patch.  Cortez Construction had finished about 10 square meters of bridge deck by 04:00AM.

The repairs are required to be completed by June 28, 2004 allowing sun seekers entrance to Kelowna for summer vacations. 

Cortez Construction’s Site Supervisor; John Poré has remarked that because of Traffic Patch they anticipate being finished earlier than expected. 

It was interesting to note that there were previous bridge deck repairs using Target’s Traffic Patch, completed in 1991 and prior, were holding up very well.

Victor Szabo, P. Eng of West Mar consultants was very pleased with the Traffic Patch as were Cortez finishers’ who commented on how easy it is to work with and the speed at which it gains hardness. Victor intends to write future specs using our material and John Poré of Cortez Construction feels comfortable utilizing Traffic Patch on other jobs they will be working on.

All good news for Target.

TARGET SOLVES UNDERWATER GROUTING PROBLEMS IN SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Target started supplying material in September of 2001 and will continue until this phase of the project is complete, probably in 2004.