It always rains in - Florida?

One of the many benefits of FORMBLOCK is that you don't have to stop work because of a shower of rain, or because inclement weather is forecast. This can be a significant time and cost saving. The pictures show a garage recently built. They didn't stop for the rain.

Displays - OldCastle sites

The purpose of the displays erected by FORMBLOCK is to demonstrate the inherent strength of the system, the use of FORMBLOCK to build insitu lintels, corners and provide a small wall that can be dismantled and re-erected by anyone wanting to have a go.

Here are some photos of several displays around Florida.

The demonstrations have started

Coming to a place near you soon!  See these photo's.  This is one of your local Florida guys building a demonstration wall.  He himself has been introduced to Formblock by Michael Ryder, the Technical Training Manager from Formblock Australia.  

More photos are coming and I hope to get some comments up here on the blog, from people that have attended the promotional days hosted by OldCastle Coastal.

OldCastle stocking Formblock

OldCastle have been producing FORMBLOCK out of their Sarasota plant to launch the revolutionary building system in the State of Florida. The photo shows some of the first run of blocks ready for dispatch. 

Formblock assists with recycling

These days we all do our bit to minimize rubbish going into our landfills. The FORMBLOCK Building System uses recycled plastic for its plastic formbridges.  So we use old ice cream containers and bottle tops etc to grind and reuse. All put to good use inside our masonry walls.

Formblock Product Launch & Training Schedule

The following dates are the planned launch dates at selected OldCastle facilities.

16/17 th September - Sarasota

18/19th September - West Palm Beach

25/26th September - Fort Myers

29/30th September - Coloroc

1st/2nd October - Orlando

For further information contact your local OldCastle representative

OldCastle Coastal starts manufacture

OldCastle Coastal has started manufacturing FORMBLOCK. Whilst an exclusive manufacturing licence, for the State of Florida is being negotiated product is being manufactured at Oldcastle's Sarasota plant.  The first shipments head to five other OldCastle facilities for the purpose of training OldCastle's staff and launching the product to the market.  I will post the launch program separately.

Why Formblock competes so well

This picture tells a story.  The sister building to this photo used Formblock for everything. That is the external and internal walls.  What it meant that the huge columns (all that steel) were not necessary.  They are only needed to fix the tilt up panel.  Think of the savings in time and money.

Batten down

We were all in Florida just a few weeks ago, based in Sarasota.  From what we understand you have a hurricane/cyclone already hitting  the southern part of Florida.  And it is heading north.

After you meet people, have visited their homes and meet their families, it brings home the relevance of natures fury. Despite being thousands of miles away here in Australia and New Zealand, our thoughts are with you.

We are thinking of you as you batten down the hatches to sit out the storm.

Take care, and our prayers are for you. 

Have you thought of this?

Formblock can also be used to prefrabricate panel sections.  Just think, you don't need to fill the wall with reinforcment just so you can lift it from the horizontal to the vertical like you have to with tiltup panels.

Think of the room you will save by prefabricating wall sections vertically.

You can see from the photo that wall sections built with Formblock can be lifted. 

Post tensioned house built in one day

A post tensioned house was built in New Zealand, a country of high seismicity, for Habitat for Humanity.  Using Formblock three people built it in one day as the series of photos show. Formblock is easy to use and unskilled or voluntary labor can make a huge contribution to a construction project.

Garden Architecture

And not wanting to leave out the landscapers who want to build a fast and effective garden wall. Formblock will also manufacture split face blocks in a range of colors.  This photo was taken at one of our displays in Austalia.

Architectual

 Formblock is ideal for accomodating a few architectual enhancements like curved walls.  In the United Arab Emirates Formblock was used for the foundations of circular buildings.  Shown here is the construction site (Motor City Dubai) and a curved demonstration wall. 

Fantastic response

You know you have something when you invite a cross section of the industry to look at your product and get a 100% response.

It has been humbling to receive such accolades from Engineers, Architects, Masons, State, City & County Authorities, and Developers.

We are doing our best to finalise an exclusive licence to manufacture Formblock in the State of Florida so you can all have access to the product.  Hopefully this will be any day soon so the imperial (we are use to metric) molds can be ordered and production start upon their delivery.

Meanwhile because of demand, we have provided a manufacturer with some metric molds and will be supplying a number of contracts with metric product.  It is no big deal, our architects reconfigure the imperial plans by 'parts of an inch' to ensure there are no issues on site. 

I will follow this post with some quotes from developers that have used Formblock in Australia, New Zealand and United Arab Emirates.

And for you engineers out there I will tell you about a post tensioned home built in New Zealand - using Formblock of course (3 guys did the block work in a day).  

Engineers like this feature

You know why engineers like Formblock? Well there are many reasons, but one important feature allows them not only to specify where the steel is to be placed, but take comfort in the fact that it is held in place, both vertically and horizontally by the plastic formbridge. Another saving realised.

A picture is worth a thousand words

The display out at Fruitville Road, Sarasota needed to show the strength of the Formblock lintel.

What do you think?

Formblock lintels save time & money

The Formblock Building System saves huge amounts of time because the mason builds the lintels as he goes.  Imagine - no stopping waiting for a carpenter, no stopping waiting for a crane - simply no stopping.

Formblock arriving in Florida

Formblock is a revolutionary building system and is about to be manufactured in Florida.  Global Building Systems, an Australian based research and development company owns the international patents to the Formblock Building System.

Formblock Florida is currently negotiating an exclusive licence with one of Florida's masonry manufacturers.

Mr George Ryder managing director of Global Building Systems is on record as saying that the Formblock building system is approximately 20% cheaper and 50% faster to erect than traditional masonry/concrete alternatives.  Not only that, Mr Ryder comments that the building or walling system's design makes it ideal for cyclonic conditions whilst being sustainable & environmentally friendly.

Formblock Florida has been on the ground, based in Sarasota for the last 8 weeks and are overwhelmed by the response from engineers, architects, inspectors, developers and masons.

Exciting times are ahead as Formblock will undoubtedly revive the masonry market in Florida