Dirk Tharpe, territory gross sales supervisor at Oldcastle APG — makers of Sakrete and Amerimix, shares his perception into the state of the concrete business and the challenges contractors are managing day by day. Concrete Contractor related with Tharpe over electronic mail in June 2025.
Q. What have been the most important challenges for concrete contractors up to now in 2025?
Dirk TharpeOldcastle APG
Whereas this isn’t a brand new drawback, it’s been heightened by generational shifts. Fewer younger individuals are coming into the trades, actually because they don’t have publicity to the advantages and alternatives of hands-on, expert work. Consequently, contractors are struggling to seek out dependable expertise to satisfy rising demand.
Q. Exterior of the financial system, what segments of concrete development have seen development in 2025?
GROWTH: Infrastructure tasks within the public sector are main concrete development development in 2025. DOT tasks proceed. This all equates to roads, bridges, marine, and freeway work. Many of those tasks create extra demand for merchandise from the precast business. All this work is being spurred on by the BIL — Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation.
AI, Good Constructing Applied sciences, and the drive for sustainable development are all contributing to a rise within the business segments of concrete development.
Concrete restore and rehabilitation have seen an uptick in elements of the nation ravaged by pure disasters of late, from record-setting flood injury to forest fires, as they dig out and rebuild.
NARROWED: Residential development has slowed. Delayed reduction in rates of interest to the rise in constructing materials prices are outstanding elements within the softening. One development that’s obvious is that there are way more monitor builders lively; nevertheless, customized houses and people specialty contractors are on the decline, at the very least for now. One hopes that that is only a short-term phenomenon.
Industrial development, exterior of the general public sector, is creeping alongside in 2025. The tasks are “on the books”, however with constructing materials value will increase, rate of interest futures nonetheless an unknown, and with the Feds taking a “wait and see” method, many tasks have had chilly water thrown on them.
General, most ready-mixed concrete suppliers are busy, however maybe not as busy as they had been in years previous. This rings true within the dry-mix concrete and mortar classes.
Q. What technological areas do you see the potential for innovation?
The way forward for concrete development might be summed up in these classes: Good Concrete Expertise, Sustainable Development, and AI-driven advances. Something is feasible. For instance, in sustainable development, the business as an entire has switched to Kind IL Cement, which was a big shift.
Q. What improvements would you wish to see developed in concrete gear and instruments?
We’d add concrete expertise to the concrete gear and instruments query. Concrete gear and instruments have superior and improved gentle years over these previous few years.
Nonetheless, concrete development faces a disturbing problem in that our summers are hotter and extra excessive, and every summer time will get hotter than the earlier one. As an business, we have to develop measures to mitigate the injury that may be prompted throughout scorching climate concreting.
Can cooling applied sciences be used on concrete types, or can poly be infused with the same materials beneath freshly positioned concrete slabs? Is there a method to decrease the warmth of hydration throughout these extremes with out overly slowing set occasions? Superheat is in our future, and we have to begin addressing that actuality.
Q. How will synthetic intelligence have the most important potential to alter issues for concrete contractors for the higher?
The way forward for AI in concrete development is limitless. We’re already seeing leaps in job security introduced on by AI, in addition to mission administration. Speech translation in actual time might be an enormous assist in concrete development, permitting English-to-Spanish communication, for instance.
With sufficient knowledge, AI algorithms can determine the optimum combine proportions to satisfy particular mission necessities, resembling energy, sturdiness, and sustainability. AI would be the key to the continued evolution of development methodologies.
Q. What do you count on the most important problem(s) might be in 2026 for the concrete business?
Indisputably, the most important problem to the concrete business in 2026 would be the continued labor scarcity. This drawback goes means past the diminishing pool {of professional} concrete finishers and applicators.
We should spotlight the scarcity of educated, ready-mixed concrete truck drivers. It is a extremely expert and important employee. Not solely have they got to be a state DOT-licensed heavy truck operator, however in addition they should convey a heavy load in transit from the plant to the job and achieve this safely whereas obeying all site visitors legal guidelines. They need to perceive how one can verify the standard of the plastic concrete from batching to unloading on the jobsite. This implies adjusting the combo all through the method.
As soon as on the job, they have to join concrete chutes to the truck and unload the concrete, working in tandem with the concrete ending crew. The job will not be over as soon as the truck is emptied; the motive force should then clear and stow their chutes in addition to rinse out the drum earlier than returning. A very good ready-mixed concrete truck operator is value their weight in gold!
Q: What has caught your curiosity these days in concrete?
As a number one dry-mix concrete producer, we should be aware a rising social media development — the “dry pour” technique. This observe entails pouring dry concrete combine right into a kind and including water afterward. It’s deceptive and unsound from a structural and security standpoint.
