What makes our products unique?

Our products are conceived and engineered with our customers’ needs uppermost in our minds. Our seven decades of knowledge of the industry enables the development of products that are tailored to fulfill our users’ needs down to the smallest detail. As the industry leader, our innovations have become the gold standard in lightweight aggregate.

A rock is more than a rock when we get finished with it.

• When block needed a fire rating, we arranged for tests with Underwriters Laboratories to test our masonry units. We achieved four-hour fire ratings, compared to two for the heavyweight


• When the architect for National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., needed an aggregate lighter than ASTM C330 standards for the concrete, we were the only company to supply it.


• When engineers for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel needed a special lightweight aggregate for the geotech purpose of forming islands around the tunnel portals, Solite^® answered the need without displacing the mud bottom and saved the nearby oyster beds for the Virginia watermen.


• When alkali-silica reactivity (ASR) was identified as a major problem, our tests showed not only that Solite^® had none; it also showed that Solite^® could be incorporated into troublesome normal weight concretes to ameliorate the ASR problem.


• When precast concrete producers needed to save weight and reduce the cost of shipping their products long distances, they turned to Solite^®to solve the problem.


• When Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, needed a permanent landscape groundcover that didn’t need replacing, we developed a groundcover for horticultural and decorative uses.


• When the New York Central Railroad tracks at West Point, New York, began sliding into the Hudson River, the existing fill was replaced with Solite^® to create a stable foundation.


• When high-performance concrete increased the autogenous shrinkage of normal weight concretes, we developed a new product, Hydrocure^®, to reduce microcracks, autogenous shrinkage, and cracking.


• When manufacturers of fire brick for backyard grills and gas logs wanted an aggregate to withstand high temperatures without fracturing, we supplied the answer!


• As construction users turn to LEED for guidance as to what constitutes a Green building, and they want additional credit to that already earned through the use of Solite^®, they can gain it through GREENLITE^™. This newly trademarked lightweight aggregate includes recycled materials made from the same raw materials, but it also incorporates some of the sizes and processes not previously used. It has an improved LEED classification.

Just as we stay abreast of evolving trends and their resulting needs, we anticipate our customers’ concerns and desires through our relationships with them, as well as through participation in industry associations, such as ASTM and ACI.