E-Crete--The New AAC

Vol. 10, No. 6). We are pleased to report that we were off by at least one! E-Crete, whose plant is located in Casa Grande, Arizona (near Phoenix), has been producing AAC blocks since December 2000. The company name was selected to signify the environmental benefits of using mine tailings for the silica content of its AAC blocks. A supply of high-quality copper mine tailings, representing 25% of the AAC dry weight content, is literally in the company’s back yard—E-Crete buys the tailings from Asarco, the firm that owns the closed copper mine on the land E-Crete leases (see photo).

E-Crete has been aggressively marketing its blocks throughout the Southwest, initially targeting the residential and light commercial building sectors. The southwestern climate, with lots of sunshine and high temperature swings, gives E-Crete a significant thermal mass benefit. For their most common block—density of 31 lbs/ft3 (497 kg/m3)— a steady state insulating value of approximately R-1.2 per inch is effectively boosted by a factor of two or more. For a 10”-thick block, the company reports an R-equivalent value of 31 for Phoenix, Arizona, using modeling and calculations per the