It was in September 2000 the CFA kicked off this study with funds coming from the Research and Education Fund. The initial tests were done at Bowser-Morner testing Labs in Dayton Ohio, on materials graciously provided by Henry Ernst and Dick Hoying of Piqua Concrete Co., Piqua, Ohio. After this initial test, our studies sort of stalled out for lack of direction until a chance meeting of Ed Sauter, myself and John Gnaedinger of Con-Cure Systems at the New Orleans W.O.C. in January 2002. When Ed and I explained to John what we were trying to accomplish, the light bulbs went off in everyone’s heads, (yes, mine was a bit dimmer than Johns and Ed’s) that we needed to team up on this thing.

We very soon decided that we wanted to use John’s equipment to monitor some real world walls in real cold temperatures, so since winter was winding down, we needed to move quickly. Because of his central location, we leaned on Bill Esker of J.B. Esker and Sons of Teutopolis IL. Bill graciously allowed us to pester his help, and donated more materials for this testing. At about the same time we were calling on volunteers to serve on the formal committee. The list that we settled on was:

• Kevin MacDonald & Kevin Heindel of Cemstone Concrete Products, Minneapolis, MN

• John Gnaedinger of Con-Cure Corporation, Chesterfield, MO

• Jim Baty, Technical Director for the CFA, Mount Vernon, IA

• Joe Daczko of Degussa/Master Builders, Cleveland, OH

• Mark Markovitch of Dependant Foundations, Brighton, MI

Ron Colvin of JC Concrete, Berrien Springs, MI

• Terry Lavy of Lavy Concrete Construction, Piqua, OH

• Scott Smith of Modern Poured Walls, LaGrange, OH

• Brad Barnes, P.E. of North Central Engineering, Canton, OH

• Rick Buccini of Osborne-Medina Concrete, Medina, OH

• Frank Ramey of Tri-County Excavating, Inc. Richfield, OH

• Arie VanWyk of Van Wyks Inc., Waldo, WI

Our committee first met in Rosemont, IL on June 15th, 2002. It was here that we devised a formal plan on how to progress with this testing. Because we had a very willing ready mix supplier in close proximity to, and evidently in very good standing with Degussa/ Master Builders Lab, we decided to do the testing in this locality. The fact that it was also the area of Ohio where the issue was in the fore-front, was just icing on the cake test cylinder. We can not thank Rick Buccini and Osborne-Medina Concrete enough for their facilities, materials, time, and those little Italian pastries! Many thanks also to Joe Daczko and his able-bodied team at Degussa’s Lab. Some days it seemed as though they were working for pizza.

Brad Barnes, P.E. has given so much time, effort, and brain power to this endeavor, he can never be paid enough. John Gnaedinger, thank you- thank you, thank you. Frank and Kristi Ramey, diligently took notes and pictures of every step of the process. Franks crews faced the cold weather to form and place our walls during phase two, and used his Tele-Belt for the pour. Western Forms graciously lent us brand new forms for the test. Charles Korhonen, M.ASCE of the US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, and Chair of the A.C.I. 306 committee on Cold Weather Concrete, has been a constant source of information and encouragement. We received great ideas and input from this entire group, other members of the CFA and the concrete industry. Most of all, many thanks to all the CFA Members who contributed so graciously to the education and research fund, and to the late, great Bob Sawyer who made it happen.

It’s been a Chilling Experience!

Thank You All,

Terry Lavy, Chairman