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We believe your project deserves nothing but the best.
That is why Fritz-Alder Precast is your ideal partner for your next construction project.
As a leading provider of precast concrete solutions, we are distinguished by our cutting-edge technology and dedication to customer service. With a strong focus on innovation, we combine advanced technical knowledge and continuous improvement to create unique, value-engineered precast possibilities for your project.
One our core products, and one of the more popular ones with our clients, are Hollowcore Slabs.
Fritz-Alder Precast is a leader in manufacturing Hollowcore slabs, offering the largest selection of Hollowcore thickness and spans on the market. The benefits of Hollowcore include their strength, speed of construction, sound resistance, fire resistance, durability, lower environmental impact, and trade-friendliness.
Hollowcore slabs are a popular construction material used in the design of floors and roofs across many construction projects, from single-family homes and multi-storey residential buildings to commercial and industrial facilities. They are known for their durability, as well as their energy efficiency and environmental responsibility.
Hollowcore slabs are precision-engineered, prestressed concrete slabs. They are also known as voided slabs, Hollowcore planks, or concrete planks. The voids reduce weight, reduce material consumption, and onsite waste.
Hollowcore slabs are prestressed concrete slabs used in the construction of floors or roofs in multi-story apartments or commercial buildings. Hollowcore is the most efficient floor system available on the market.
Hollowcore is made of prestressed steel strands set in slabs with voids (hence the name Hollowcore) inside. The voids make the final product lighter and are engineered so that they also make the slab stronger. In fact, despite having voids, they are stronger and have a higher load-bearing capacity.
Fritz-Alder Precast produces high-quality Hollowcore slabs from 6 inches in thickness up to 16 inches. All our Hollowcore spans come in 48-inch (121.92cm) widths.
We have slabs rated with one hour of fire resistance in 6-, 8-, 10-, and 12, 14- 16-inch thicknesses and we have slabs rated to two hours of fire resistance in 8-, 10-, 12-, 14-, and 16-inch thickness.
The use of hollowcore slabs in construction has gained popularity due to their energy efficiency, environmental responsibility, sound resistance, fire resistance, durability, faster construction times, being trade-friendly, architectural and design freedom, and strength.
These slabs offer excellent thermal characteristics, require fewer materials and less energy to produce, and have highly efficient acoustic properties.
The use of these slabs also reduces labour and insurance costs and improves workplace safety conditions, making them trade-friendly. Architects and designers have more freedom when designing room layouts as these slabs require fewer structural support elements.
Hollowcore slabs have excellent thermal characteristics, which help reduce the energy consumption used in heating and cooling.
Hollowcore slabs require less materials (less cement, less water, and less steel) to make than their standard counterparts. The voids make the slabs more efficient because you need less material over the same span. Because they can span long distances, they require less structural support, lowering the overall amount of material required for the whole building. This lowered weight also means that the building needs less foundation to support it which also reduces building materials. Our slabs have lower weight, which results in lower transportation costs, less fuel, and smaller vehicles for transportation resulting in lower environmental impact during construction.
Concrete doesn’t emit any gas, toxic compounds or volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and it’s also moisture resistant, so it doesn’t rot or mold. This makes for excellent indoor air quality!
The air gaps in the voids of a Hollowcore slab create a sound-dampening effect as less area is available for sound (vibrations) to travel through the floor or ceiling. As a result, Hollowcore slabs have highly efficient acoustic properties.
Hollowcore slabs made of precast concrete are fireproof because concrete is a non-combustible material that can withstand high temperatures and prevent the spread of flames. In addition to the material properties of concrete, Hollowcore slabs are designed with fire resistance in mind.
Hollowcore slabs are highly resistant to changing weather and environmental conditions and are therefore less likely to develop cracks or delamination. Our slabs have an exceptional lifespan and are also more resistant to corrosion and penetration of foreign materials.
Hollowcore slabs from Fritz-Alder Precast arrive on-site ready to install. This means that our team is in and out faster, giving quicker access to other trades. Our concrete also arrives on-site fully cured, which means you can walk and use machines on it immediately after installation is complete.
Our slabs also require less labour to install which reduces the number of workers on-site during the installation process, which reduces insurance costs and improves workplace safety conditions.
Tradespeople love working with our product, not just because we give them faster access on-site, but also because the voids in our slabs give them easy access for running electrical, plumbing, or networking infrastructure. This also saves costs over having to install on the surface and then encase everything in conduit.
Because our Hollowcore slabs easily span long distances (20m), they require fewer structural support elements like columns or load-bearing walls. This gives your architects and designers more freedom when designing room layouts.
Precast Hollowcore slabs are reinforced with prestressed steel and then cured in a controlled environment allowing the concrete to set properly for maximum strength. How strong? Our slabs have a 28-day strength of 8,000 psi. We use prestressed steel strands in our slab construction with a break strength of 1860MPa. To give you an idea of just how strong that is, titanium has a break strength of 1100MPa. The nominal break strength of standard steel rebar, used in set-in-place concrete slab construction, is a meagre 550MPa. The prestressed strands we use are more than THREE times stronger than standard rebar.
Hollowcore slabs are made using a continuous concrete extrusion process, with state-of-the-art technology (e.g., Shear Compaction Extruders), using zero-slump, high-strength concrete. Our slabs are manufactured in a controlled environment and fully cured before being shipped out to the job site.
Vibrating extruders, like the ones currently being used by our competition, were first introduced in the 1970s. They use an electric motor to rotate the eccentrics at a vibration frequency of 50-250Hz. This method offered easy production with improved efficient compaction but inconsistent quality due to the vibration. The vibration also caused high noise levels, which were harmful for workers, and the machines were prone to breakdowns.
Fritz-Alder uses the latest technology for manufacturing our Hollowcore slabs. We were the first company in Ontario to start using a Shear Compaction Extruder. The biggest advantage to using Shear Compaction machines is that the concrete is vibration at a frequency of 10Hz using a controlled, three-dimensional motion. The efficient feeding screws play a dual role, pushing the Extruder forward on the casting bed while also compacting the concrete.
This process improves the consistency of each slab and reduces the chances of differential camber.
