Made with recycled materials, Lok-N-Blok makes designing your home simple, affordable and sustainable. Ellen caught up with Lok-N-Blok at KBIS 2022 to learn about how the company is redefining construction as we know it.


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Ellen: If you are considering building a home, there  are lots of new options to consider.
What you're seeing behind me is the actual structure of  what could be your home. It is
sustainable. It is called Lock-N-Block Gregory Siener is joining me to talk about the
concept... how it might save you money in labor costs and why this is a great way to
consider constructing your new home or building. So thank you for joining me. 

Gregory: Thank you for having me.

Ellen: Talk about what this is and how it works please. W

Gregory: Well what we've done here  is we've created a lightweight construction block that
is made from a composite material. Our base polymer is polypropylene. We combine it with
other things, other minerals and glass fibers to create  a very highly compressive strength
construction product. We're in excess of 6000 psi in strength.  We can sustain hurricane
force winds. We can sustain tornado force winds. The advantage of our  system is that it's
very easy to install. You can't mis-install it. It only connects together one way, but it
interlocks top to bottom and end to end. Very simple to lock the blocks together, so once 
you put these together it's kind of like Legos.

Ellen: Let's say once you put it together do you have  to pour concrete in here? What do you
have to do to keep these together?

Gregory: Our system works that in when they're locked together, this is one part... the
second part is a post tensioning rod that actually runs from the concrete footer below it all
the way up through the wall to the top and when they're connected together and the next
course applied with those post tentioning rods with the top plate everything is tightened
down and pulled into a solid wall system.

Ellen: So this can only be at this point square...places like I can turn I can't do anything
in the round area right?

Gregory: Not yet.

Ellen: Okay.

Gregory: But we do have angle blocks in design that in second  quarter of this year we hope
to introduce the angles which will allow you to do angled intersections at various degrees
and also radius corners so if somebody wanted to do a rounded corner we can... we'll be able
to do that as well.

Ellen: So what's the cost differentiator for doing this  versus doing it the traditional way?

Gregory: Traditional way most... a lot of people now are using two by six frame construction.
Two by six frame construction comparative in cost, we're going to be about 50  to 70 cents per
square foot of wall space higher.

Ellen: Okay, but?

Gregory: We're giving significant advantages in the speed of build, right? We're going to cut
about 70 of your build time off because of the way  our blocks, how easily our blocks connect
together. Additionally you don't need skilled labor to put this in place. And what I love is
you can cut this and then you take it back and recycle it so there is no waste. We use a 20
percent recycled content in our material to begin with, but any waste that a contractor has
on the job site doesn't go to a landfill, or we hope it doesn't go to a landfill. We have a
program that will buy back any of their waste from their job site because we can regrind it
and put it back into our production process and reuse all that waste material.

Ellen: So while I know it's new, just making its debut, what about cutouts for outlets? How
does that work and what about also then putting on any of the walls and stuff like that?

Gregory: Okay, sheetrock attaches directly to our product so you'll screw it directly to the
block itself. If you want to put an outlet box in you simply use a circular saw... cut into the
block, cut the outlet box and attach it to the block. But at that point you run your wiring
either through the center cavity and punch it through into the box or you can run the wire down
this exterior cavity here and run it directly to the box. So very simple to install an outlet,
very simple to run your electricity. And when your wall system is built you basically attach
your sheetrock to it on the inside and on the outside you apply your additional insulation
whatever it is to to raise RR value up to what your code is in your area. You apply your
insulation and apply your exterior cladding very simple.

Ellen: I love that this is recyclable. I love that there are new ideas coming to how you build
your home, and that you shouldn't think there's only one way to do it... always new ideas.
I'm at lock and block.