Rural Roots
A countryside setting places Wieser
Concrete Products closer to the customers it
serves.
By Ron Hyink
Deep in the Wisconsin countryside,
where narrow roads merge with thick woods and
rolling hills, the trees radiate with stunning
color as another year eases into its final season.
Whitetail deer forage in a distant pasture,
and the crisp air and crystal streams carry
a subtle reminder that city life can never be
this peaceful and serene.
You'd never expect a precast
concrete plant in the midst of this scenic beauty,
yet there it is around the next bend tucked
in next to a large tree-studded hill. But it
isn't as odd as it may first appear, as this
rural setting puts Wieser Concrete Products,
Inc., closer to the customers it serves: farmers
and other folks who choose to live far from
the city limits. It also puts it closer to two
aggregate sources the company owns.
Wieser is known throughout
Wisconsin and in the surrounding states for
manufacturing septic tanks and agricultural
products, which comprise the bulk of the company's
business. These are the belles of the ball,
so to speak, as the company has invested years
of experience and slick engineering to bring
to market some unique products, most notably
a recirculating septic system and a slatted
floor system for dairy farmers.
Friends of Nature
A relatively new product
emerging from the Wieser plants is the "recirculating
vertical flow wetland system," an aeration
system that treats septic tank effluent. Many
homes in the region currently use a mound system,
which reduces or eliminates the need for a holding
tank that must be pumped out regularly. The
mound systems treat the septic effluent, but
homeowners are left with a small hill in their
back yards.
"A mound system is a
standard septic system," said Andy Wieser,
president of Wieser Concrete Products, Inc.,
and son of Joe Wieser, who established the company
in 1965. "But the ground won't accept the
hydraulic loading of the effluent, so they mound
a pile of sand in your yard and run the pipes
through that."
Homes using the mound system
typically require 3 feet of treatment zone (the
sand) and dirt topped with grass to cover the
pipes and sand. "You end up with about
a 4-foot-high mound in your yard," said
Andy. "And about 50 percent of the septic
systems that go into this area are mound systems."
A more effective method of
handling a home's sewer is to add a septic system
below grade that can take advantage of basic
scientific principles and recycle the cleansed
effluent back to nature. The DYNO2, an aeration
system, takes the effluent from a septic tank,
feeds it to plants that eat the pollutants,
removes the contaminants and releases clear
water into the drain field.
This system, designed by Reactor
Dynamics of Forest Lake, Minn., and manufactured
by Wieser Concrete Products, is a precast concrete
tank that comes complete with all the necessary
components preinstalled at the plant. "This
unit allows a decrease in the amount of soil
needed between the limiting layers, or the groundwater
and bedrock," said Dan Jensen, environmental
engineer at Wieser's Portage, Wis., plant.
Jensen explained that the
effluent from the septic tank enters the DYNO2
through a nitrogen bundle, which provides a
carbon source and lades the effluent with ammonia
and carbon. Solids settle to the bottom of the
first chamber while water passes through a filter
and into the second chamber. From that point,
the water is pumped into the upper section of
the tank, where it travels through a piping
system. The water flowing through the pipes
draws in air through a venturi and gets saturated
with oxygen. The water now contains aerated
bacteria that convert the ammonia into nitrates
and recycles through the system up to 20 times.
"As the nitrate-laden
effluent settles down into the collection tubes,
it comes back into our nitrogen bundle,"
explained Jensen. "Now that the effluent
has a nitrated and aerated source, it goes into
an anaerobic condition where nitrogen gas is
released, thus reducing the total amount of
nitrogen in the effluent." The amount of
nitrogen removed from the water can be controlled
by the number of times it recirculates through
the system.
Meanwhile, on top of the system,
silica aluminate covers the piping system and
provides a growth medium for the bacteria. Sphagnum
moss is piled on top, which allows nitrogen
and oxygen to be diffused to wetland plants.
"Homeowners can choose from 50 different
types of wetland plants to put on here,"
said Jensen. "About the only thing the
homeowner has to do is choose which plants or
what color scheme they want in their back yards."
As for the water itself, a
control panel determines whether the water is
clean enough to flow into an absorption field
or whether it needs to recirculate. The control
panel will alert the homeowner if the water
gets too high or too low. In such a case, the
homeowner notifies the person in charge of taking
care of the unit. It can also be hooked up to
a telephone line to perform that task automatically.
Three hatches top off the
system. They provide access to the nitrogen
bundle, the filter and the pump if maintenance
becomes necessary.
Simple hookup is another built-in
convenience. "It's your mom and pop plumber
who's putting them in," explained Andy.
"So when the plumber buys this, after we
put it in, all he has to do is hook up the pipes
and electricity to it, and it's ready to go,"
he said.
In larger rural developments,
such as hotels, condos and golf courses, the
effluent may require pretreatment, and Wieser
has an answer for that as well. "We just
developed a 40,000-gallon septic tank,"
said Mark Wieser, P.E., the company's vice president.
Mark explained that the newest addition, which
has a patent pending, uses post-tensioning technology
where each individual section of the tank is
post-tensioned.
The DYNO2 system has other
uses as well. "We're also using this for
milk-house waste for agriculture, when they
clean out their milk parlors and wash the animals
before milking them," said Jensen. Dairy
farmers, in fact, capture a lot of Wieser's
attention. Besides manufacturing precast concrete
feed bunks, bunker silos and grain storage walls
for the agricultural community, the company
also builds manure storage systems, including
a slatted floor barn system.
Clearing the Air
It's no secret that the
country air is fresh and clean, but the nose
will usually let you know when a dairy farm
is nearby - or more specifically a dairy farm
that has no manure storage system. And if the
wind is just right and a town is nearby …
well, it's just not a good combination.
Manure storage lagoons allow
farmers to spread the ultimate product of fertilizer
onto crops when the crops need it and when the
weather is agreeable. Even those systems require
intense labor, machinery and constant maintenance,
plus they swallow up precious land. But these
are modern times, and there is a better way.
The slatted floor barn system
manufactured and installed by Wieser has become
a popular commodity in the agricultural community.
These manure storage systems are relatively
hassle-free because waste falls through the
slatted floors into the storage area below,
which can be pumped out at a convenient time.
And they eliminate offensive odors.
"We developed the first
so-called gang slats; all the slats before we
started building them were individual slats,"
said Joe Wieser. "By accident we put our
slats together in a panel because they were
easier to handle. We made a 4-foot-by-10-foot
panel rather than each individual slat."
Thus was born a simple and economical solution
to building a slatted floor barn system and
a better method of handling manure.
The system is built as a precast
concrete column-and-beam construction over a
concrete floor. Precast concrete walls enclose
the storage area below grade and, along with
the columns and beams, support the slatted floors
and free-stall panels (individual solid-floor
stalls where the cows can rest). Access hatches
to the storage area are also built into the
floor. Once the system is installed, a barn
can be built over it.
The company also builds slatted
floor systems for calves and hogs, each of which
requires a different slat width than mature
cows.
Know Your Customer
Providing this level
of farming savvy and service requires knowledge
and experience. With the plant thriving in the
midst of farming country, it's only natural
that most of Wieser Concrete's employees come
from farms. Some, like Joe, owned their own
farms, and most are long-term employees who
have become well-versed in the precast concrete
industry.
Mike Harmon, for example,
grew up on a farm and went to work at the Wieser
plant right out of high school in 1969. "I
stripped forms for a number of years, ran the
mixer for a number of years, worked in the yard
for a number of years, and I drove for like
15-20 years," said Harmon. In 1995 he took
over as dispatch manager, the position he holds
now. "We do have people working for us
who have put in years of service. There are
guys in the plant with 10, 15, 20, 25 years,"
he said.
"We have a couple of
30-plus guys still here," said Red Mears,
the production manager. "When I got here,
80 percent of the guys who worked for us had
grown up on farms. So we understand that (lifestyle)."
Mears himself owns a small farm and used to
do some farming. Coming on board in 1976, he,
like Harmon and others, started at the bottom
and worked his way up.
"We have a lot of dedicated
employees here that really make us go - each
one is very important," said Dan Wieser,
who handles the demanding jobs of accountant
and corporate secretary. Dan himself has been
working for the company full-time since 1982.
"But the farming background, yeah, it's
very important because they understand what
the farmer goes through and what we're trying
to do. Probably our best business is the farm
business."
Knowledge and experience aside,
success has turned on the wheels of plain, hard
work. "I like the challenge of getting
it done," said Mears. "It's very easy
to come to work - because I do like what I do."
Eye on Production
Quality employees provide
quality service, but the quality products they
make require an additional element: quality
control of the manufacturing processes. The
premier method of accomplishing that element,
the Wiesers have found, is through the plant
certification process.
"We've been involved
with the NPCA plant certification program for
about 14 years," said Andy, who has been
on the NPCA Plant Certification Committee for
the past four years. "It's been a big benefit
to our company."
Andy explained that the inspectors
are experienced and usually point out things
that had gone unnoticed. They serve as an extra
set of eyes and provide useful advice. "Every
time we've had an inspection, I think they brought
out something that has helped us - from safety
points to production tips," he said.
The company has also enjoyed
standing out from among its competition because
of plant certification, particularly in terms
of publicity and recognition from state agencies.
Although Wisconsin and Minnesota do not require
certification, the Wiesers feel that the state
agencies look to the company with added confidence
as a result of the certification.
The cost of gaining that certification
is perhaps a barrier for some plants, but Andy
takes another view. "We're a firm believer
that certification saves you way more than the
expense," he said. Andy mentioned that
some of the little things inspectors pick out
add up to a cost savings, but the real bonus
is what a company doesn't have to do, such as
returning to a job site because a product wasn't
manufactured right. "You can't even put
a number on it, because if you're doing it right
you don't have that cost," he said.
"The certification program
has come a long way in the last three or four
years," said Andy. He explained that the
program is continually being improved, and the
quality control manual is much more user friendly
and easier to understand. "Any plant can
become certified without much help. All they
have to do is follow that manual." And
now with NPCA's mentoring program, any plant
can be matched with a mentor plant to help prepare
them for certification.
For a plant by a narrow road
in the Wisconsin countryside, Wieser Concrete
Products' arms stretch far and wide - the company
delivers products not only in Wisconsin and
surrounding states, it has reached as far as
New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and California.
Yet it's little wonder, since the company is
known for quality manufacturing and expert service.
