Importing Sand

[sansei]

Article in the Honolulu Advertiser: Isle concrete suppliers forced to import sand http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/p...90338/1071
Did I just hear cha ching on building costs? Of course commercial builders that typically use more concrete are more affected.

The other thing of concern is that oil prices continue to go up and that means fuel surchages on transporting the sand only has one direction to go.


Larry

[Jeffhale]

I just constructed a small rock wall, last week. Had to go to Puna Rock In Kea`u for sand.. It is ground up lava, (blue stone) mined and ground right there, on the spot. Price seemed reasonable too, at $40 per ton.. So, unless this is inferior, I wouldn't be worrying much about getting sand, not at all.

At least, I didn't notice any shortage of lava on the B.I.

[emorata]

hi jeff,

so is that black sand vs white sand produced? Thats a good price per tone

[Bob Orts]

Is the sand used in concrete the same as pulverizing rock to sand like consistency? I thought they were two different things from a construction point of view?

[sansei]

Natural sand is smooth and rounded from wear. Crushed rock is irregular and angular. The aggregate would tend to dominate a concrete mix and I would not expect to see any difference between natural and manufactured sand. A mortar mix for pointing or grouting may not work as smoothly with the pointy man made sand. There may also be some descernable difference in shotcrete or gunnite. Someone from Pacific Gunnite may be able to answer that.


Larry

[Carey]

Right now there is a lot of FREE black sand from the Wailoa dredging. It has tested safe (a fact that seemed to surprise the county). The only hitch is, like all ocean beach sand, it has a very high salt content, and most likely is not good for concrete, unless you want a really low temp cure (just joking...but they do add salt to concrete up north in the winter...) Of course you can wash it, but it really does have a lot of salt....which does kill most planting & such.

[Kahunascott]

Carey,
It's also full of organic matter and wouldn't have any strength.

[Puna Kite Man]

I wonder if that would be ok for planting grass.

[Carey]

Unless your grass is VERY salt tolerant, or the sand is washed of most of the salt, it may burn the grass. We had some that was used for a science project where the sand was water seived. The left over sand was put in a shallow depression in our yard that was weedy. Even after a little rinsing, the weeds died. There are now some grasses that are growing (after 2 months), so if you are not in any hurry...