Summer Seawalls - Fun in the Sun 
Tuscan Windows - Flagstone Benches 
January 2010
It has warmed us up to know that we are in the January 2010 Issue of "Our House". What a great magazine! What a great way to start out the year! Just take a look at us through the eyes of Baugher Design & Remodel:
Thanks Guys!
Check It Out:
The 2009 summer issue of "Vestavia Hills Living" magazine. Great magazine & great family business articles. "Concrete Repeat" is just one of the success stories in this wonderful magazine. This group of "Mag - Nets" work hard to capture all the Great photos & interviews while making you smile!
Below you'll find just a sample of the "GREEN" issue: September/October 2009 Issue of Birmingham Home & Garden! Always a great mag to read no mater what season!
Another awesome group of talented individuals giving you the latest on "Living Green and Loving It"! Concrete Repeat is right in the middle of this "Eco-Issue" along with a "Fab, Mag in a Mag" issue" of "Our House" by "Baugher Design & Remodel"!
Concrete Repeat recycles concrete sidewalks, driveways
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Frank Couch/Birmingham NewsBrett Roberts stands next to an 8-foot high, 100-foot long retaining wall his company built out of recycled concrete.A desire to save money and the planet was basically what prompted Brett Roberts last year to start a business that recycles concrete.
Concrete Repeat recycles concrete sidewalks and driveways to make stonescaped retaining walls, decorative walls and stairs for residential and corporate clients. Their main focus is to keep concrete out of the landfills and to keep landfill dumping costs down for consumers.
The business is a division of Roberts' 3-year-old construction company, Southern Benchmark Inc., which has outgrown its Cahaba Heights location. The company recently moved to a three-acre location off I-459 in Trussville.
Roberts, a certified structural builder, got the idea to recycle concrete when he took 15 tons of concrete to a landfill in January 2008 and discovered that the price to dump it had gone up to $35 a ton. Not wanting to pay $525 in dumping fees, he immediately turned his truck around and put the slabs in his backyard.
His wife, Kathleen, saw the pile and all the colors in it and suggested he make pavers out of it.
Roberts figured he could apply what he already knew about building segmental wall systems to broken concrete.
One of his first projects was to remove an old broken concrete driveway from a Birmingham couple's home and use it to make an 8-foot-tall retaining wall for a swimming pool that was starting to slide off a cliff because of a weakened wooden retaining wall.
Roberts and his crew installed a new wall using the concrete from the driveway, poured a new pool deck, reconstructed the pool, installed a new pool liner, poured a new driveway, removed an existing flagstone wall that had shifted and rebuilt it, built columns made of flagstone to match the new flagstone wall, and updated the electrical system around the pool.
They finished the job in seven weeks.
Frank Couch/Birmingham NewsThe concrete retaining wall for a pool, shown at the lower right, blends in perfectly with flagstone columns, at left, built around a Birmingham pool deck."It's much more appealing," said homeowner Scott Beeton. "We don't see the concrete portion of it and when we do, it's less of an eyesore to me."
Beeton added that he and his wife spent a year and a half trying to find people to take on what they called an "adventure," but the estimates for an interlocking system they received to fix the pool and wall were outrageous. When they found Roberts, Beeton said the cost was a fraction of what others would have charged.
Vee Adams, recycling coordinator for American Recycling in Bessemer, said Thursday that she's not aware of anyone in the Birmingham metro area with a similar business. But, she thinks it's a good idea.
"I think it's great on one level just because it's keeping the large items out of the landfills," she said. "From a local perspective, in this economy ... anybody who can come up with a green job in this point in time, they have a leg up in keeping their business alive. Everybody's down except for recyclers, it seems like."
Roberts said he uses "clean" concrete, which means it must be free of materials like rebar, and it must be at least four inches thick. He said the price his office charges to remove concrete from a location depends on the job, which must be a minimum of 500 square feet. They also accept "clean" concrete at their office, charging about $10 a ton.
Once a consumer determines how they want to use old concrete for a project, the concrete is broken into stone-sized pieces to create the company's own segmental wall system.
Roberts said they offer a 25-year-structural warranty on retaining walls, and they provide an engineer for such jobs.
Homeowners and businesses seem to like his idea.
"They love the price, they love the fact that we are going green ... and they love the look," he said. "It's a win-win situation for everybody, including the planet."
Join the conversation below or e-mail Guster at
cguster@bhamnews.com.
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