90 years of concrete experience

Rainwater collection, purification and beneficial use or delayed disposal is an increasingly important issue due to climate change and the sustainability of society. Bemax, manufacturer of precast concrete products for rainwater harvesting, domestic wastewater treatment and residential construction, with 90 years of concrete experience, has a number of unique products in its range.

Text | Roel van Gils  Image | Bemax

Bemax is a true family business and has been producing concrete products since 1932. Anno 2020, the company has two fully automated concrete plants supplying seven modern production lines with constant concrete quality. "Our focus is on consistently high quality, with a lot of attention to sustainability, circularity and safety," says director Merijn van den Eeden, who is pleased with the fact that the new generation also joined the family business last summer, ensuring succession.

PXL Hogeschool Hasselt.

Weight saving

The production of monolithic concrete wells is one of the spearheads at Bemax. "We produce wells from 1,600 to 20,000 liters in which the bottom and wall are poured in one go," Van den Eeden explains. "These wells are used for rainwater collection, purification, soil infiltration and other applications and are available in various concrete types and load classes. The specific round or oval shape of our manholes provides a significant competitive advantage, namely lower weight thanks to the thinner wall thickness. A pit with a capacity of 10,000 liters weighs 5 tons with us, 7 tons with our competitors, while guaranteeing the same strength and watertightness. Lower weight means the use of fewer primary raw materials and our customers need less heavy machinery to install the wells. If required, we can prepare the wells completely prefabricated in our factory, by incorporating filter sets or installing intake pipes. Further unique developments are the Maxiterne and Fluxiterne for rainwater treatment and delayed rainwater discharge, respectively."

Besides the monolithic concrete manholes, many other products 'roll' out of Bemax's precast concrete factory. "For example, we produce hollow lintels for residential construction, pit elevations and monitoring wells in a wide range of designs, smoke extraction elements and customer-specific concrete products. Think of concrete feet in self-compacting concrete on which LED screens are placed. We also produce daily concrete spacers to ensure the correct concrete coverage on the iron mesh reinforcement during and after the pouring of concrete floors." Bemax distributes its products through the building materials trade, earthmoving companies and major construction contractors.