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Approach to Innovative Commercial Building Construction Tilt-up Concrete
Construction ArticlesTilt-up Construction: A General Contractor's Approach
to Innovative Commercial Building ConstructionHave you ever driven past
a construction site and seen massive cranes lifting huge panels of concrete in
the air? Have you watched with amazement as a new commercial building seems to
spring into place, almost overnight? What you have witnessed is tilt-up construction,
an innovative method for building office buildings, retail centers, warehouses,
distribution centers, call centers, manufacturing facilities and other commercial
/ industrial structures with amazing speed, safety, and cost benefits. So
what is the difference between tilt-up and other types of construction? In
traditional forms of wall construction, the walls can be built with CMU blocks
or blocks faced with brick. For some types of buildings, the exterior wall is
made up of structural steel columns with heavy gauge metal studs covered with
gyp sheathing, which is then faced with brick or stucco. Regardless which traditional
approach is used, building the exterior walls is a time-consuming, multi-stepped
process. A tilt-up building's walls are created horizontally in large slabs of
concrete called panels. The panels are then lifted, or tilted up, into position
around the building's slab. This means the tilt-up structure's exterior wall is
virtually finished when it is tilted into place. Tilt-up construction (also
called tiltwall or tilt wall construction) has a long history, but its widespread
use is a relatively new phenomenon. In spite of this, tilt-up construction is
fast becoming the method of choice for constructing modern warehouses, call centers,
distribution centers, retail stores, office and storage buildings and other types
of industrial and commercial facilities
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