COVER STORY 2
ECHO PRESTRESS CELEBRATES
OF PRESTRESSED SLAB PRO One of South Africa’s prestressed hollow-core concrete slab pioneers, Echo Prestress, is celebrating its 20th year. The company was founded in 1995 when a factory was built in Kempton Park to manufacture prestressed hollow-core slabs. Like all green-shoot business ventures there was no guarantee that the market was ready for a substantial increase in prestressed slab production, especially as in those days the South African construction industry was still largely wedded to what it had been taught and knew best - in situ construction.
second factory in Gauteng, Echo Floors. Moreover, it is the only South African company to offer both prestressed and reinforced hollow-core slabs. Raising awareness Echo Prestress managing director, Monique Eggebeen, says that from the outset it was realised that a process of education was required if prestressed hollowcore was to make a significant impact on
However, Echo Group’s founder and
(Above): Some of the installed Echo prestressed slabs at the MTN data centre’s second-floor extension project in Centurion.
the South African construction industry.
current chairman, Peter Lord, was
“This was a task we undertook to do
convinced that certain sectors of the
ourselves and we began by conducting
market were ready to convert to pre-
plant tours. We found that almost
stressed hollow-core construction, given
everyone, from contractors to engineers,
its substantial economic and technical
had never seen the prestressed hollow-
benefits. The fact that Echo Prestress is
core slab manufacturing process before.
today South Africa’s largest prestressed
Precast construction was not a subject
hollow-core slab producer, as well as the
covered by universities and over the
largest company within the Echo Group,
years we have gone to considerable
bears testament to his foresight. The
lengths to lecture third- and fourth-year
group itself enjoys the status of being
engineering students on the application
the largest hollow-core slab producer in
and benefits of the technology. This
the Southern Hemisphere and is nation-
p r ogr amm e is s till ongo ing an d in
ally represented with factories in Durban
addition to lectures, we conduct factory
(Echo Durban), Cape Town (Topfloor) and a
tours and in-house presentations.
PRECAST | ISSUE TWO | 2015