Founded in Hartford City, Indiana, in 1936, Hartford Concrete began as a manufacturer of precast burial vaults and septic tanks. Nearly 30 years later, an Illinois Bell engineer approached Hartford Concrete with the concept of applying its precast burial vault capabilities in the manufacture of underground telephone cable access vaults. The company quickly grew to its current position as the premier manufacturer of underground vaults for the utility, communications, water management, and transportation markets.
As the communications suppliers began to rapidly expand their geographic coverage, they came to Hartford Concrete in 1982 to develop larger precast underground equipment vaults capable of housing sensitive networking equipment. Known as Controlled Environment Vaults, or CEVs, these precast structures combine the square footage required to house multiple racks of networking equipment with environmental controls that ensure ideal conditions for equipment operation. CEVs offer network reliability to communications service providers.
Following the successful initial deployment of the CEVs, Hartford Concrete was asked to begin developing above-grade Equipment Enclosures (huts). These huts furnish the benefits associated with CEVs, but in a grade-level precast concrete package. In 2006, Oldcastle Precast acquired Hartford Concrete, its first precast operation in the Great Lakes states. Now, Hartford Concrete brings the collective resources of over 80 precast operations across the nation to its customers in the Midwest.
