Kent Building Supplies

Background

Kent Building Supplies is a chain of 48 retail home improvement stores in Atlantic Canada. Founded in 1974, it is the region’s largest big-box building supply outlet store both in terms of locations and sales. As a result, Kent Building Supplies employs over 3,400 people throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. And they are able to maintain three styles of retail stores: traditional, mini-box, and warehouse. Traditional stores can span up to 4,181 m² (45,000 ft²). Meanwhile, the mini-box stores include a warehouse space and can span up to 7,897 m² (85,000 ft²). Spanning a much larger size than either of the previous styles, the warehouse style can span up to 9,290 m² (100,000 ft²).

Hoping to create another store in the warehouse style in St. John’s, Kent Building Supplies wanted their construction team to ensure it would be durable. So their contractors looked for a concrete hardening solution that could work with air-entrained concrete and provide it with abrasion resistance against large equipment like forklifts and skids.

Solution

To help Kent Building Supplies and the contractors find the right solution for them, Arrow Construction Products Ltd. recommended and supplied Kryton's integral hardening admixture, Hard-Cem, since it is compatible with air-entrained concrete and has a proven track record of providing abrasion and erosion resistance. Kent Building Supplies first tried out Hard-Cem in their Conception Bay store, which was a big success. In response, they included Hard-Cem in the specifications for the concrete aprons of their warehouse-style store in St. John’s. Since Hard-Cem was also ideal for high-traffic, pedestrian, cart, and forklift areas, the admixture was also used in the store’s garden center and drive-through lumber yard. It was a good choice because Hard-Cem is able to improve concrete floor flatness while also furthering the longevity of the concrete, lowering maintenance costs in the long run.

Because of these benefits, Hard-Cem has been incorporated in five Kent Building Supplies stores to date.

It was also able to impress Sam Roberts of Sam Roberts Cement Finishing Ltd. with its durability and workability, with him noting that:

Hard-Cem was perfect to work with and presented no issues at all during construction.

In short, with its integral hardening technology, Hard-Cem has proven it can maintain the integrity of concrete and protect it from erosion and abrasion. At the same time, its compatibility with common admixtures and air-entrained concrete demonstrate its versatility. Hard-Cem’s versatility doesn’t stop there either. After all, Hard-Cem can be incorporated in interior and exterior concrete applications for high-traffic retail operations like Kent Building Supplies. In any such application and more, Hard-Cem delivers value, quality assurance, and improved concrete sustainability.