The Golden Trowel has been presented for 37 years to contractors who produce the world’s flattest and  most level floors.  They are awarded in several different categories, based on how the floor was initially  struck off, how wide the floor castings are, how much shake-on hardener or steel fibers were used, and other factors that influence flatness and levelness.  Golden Trowel Gold Plates are awarded to the winner in each category, while Golden Trowel Silver Plates recognize truly outstanding entries that achieved exceptional results but did not dominate the category.  The thought behind the genesis of the Golden Trowel was that competition might drive up quality.  That thought has been proven conclusively to be true, year after year.  The best floor in the world back in 1990 wouldn’t even be considered for a Golden Trowel today.  And North America no longer dominates the awards.  North America was shut out of the world records in 2019, won only one of two new world records in 2020, and was shut out again in 2021.  The only new World Records since then have been from Vietnam in 2024 and this year, from China!  Last year, of the 9 Gold and Silver Trowels awarded, 7 were from Brazil, China, Vietnam, and Thailand, and only 2 were from the USA!  This year, 14 contractors won 17 Trowels, and of those, only 4 of the 14 contractors are from the USA.  That’s quite a change from the recent past, when the USA dominated the awards.   

 

Why are floors so much better now?  People continue to learn how to use existing concrete placing and finishing tools to better advantage and are passing on that knowledge and skill to new generations of concrete finishers.  Concrete floor consultants are learning what works and what doesn’t, and are teaching the best practices.  And batch plants are being held to high standards on the concrete that they deliver to the field.  The tools available are better than they were, even just a few years ago.  The Somero Laser Screed revolutionized the way concrete could be struck off.  As laser screeds got better and better, and as people learned  the best ways to use them, the flatness and levelness of floors improved significantly, even as daily output was dramatically increased.  All these factors have made a big difference in the flatness and levelness of floors.  But so has striving for excellence and for the recognition that comes from being the best in the world – a winner of the Golden Trowel®.   

 Over the first 25 years of the Golden Trowel® contest, we had winning entries from North and South America, Australia, and Europe, but not one from Asia.  Because we noted that floors in Asia were neither as flat nor as level as floors in the West, and because floors in the West were constantly improving, it appeared to us that Asia might never catch up to the rest of the world without some incentive.   

For this reason, the Face Company inaugurated the “Golden Trowel Asia” contest in 2015.  The Golden Trowel Asia is a special award available only to contractors in Asia. There have been a total of 32 Golden Trowel Asia Awards won by 14 different contractors from China, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia.  The quality of floors has been improving very rapidly in Asia, at least for a small number of concrete floor contractors.  Since 2020, The US has not set a World Record, while new World Records have been set in Australia, Vietnam, and China.   

 

2025 Golden Trowels 

 As late as 2008, the Gold-winning FL on a narrow strip floor was FL 67.  Xi’An Super Flooring Technology from China produced a floor the old-fashioned way for Ashine Diamond Tools using a truss screed, and not only did they win a Golden Trowel on their first entry, but they set a World Record FL 159.8 doing it!   

 Over the past few years, we have seen more and more companies producing more and more floors using Laser Screeds.  Once again, because everyone seems to want to compete in the Laser Screed category, even the third-and-fourth-best floors this year would have been good enough to win just a year or two ago.   

 2025 Silver Trowels: 

 Silver Trowels are a sort of “Distinguished Honorable Mention” category.  Silver Trowels are not awarded in every category, but as you will see below, sometimes a floor that would have won a Golden Trowel, is overshadowed by an even more spectacular floor the same year.  This kind of a floor deserves recognition and is awarded a Silver Trowel.   

 

As noted above, most of the entries that we receive these days are in one of the Laser Screed categories – small, which is over 10,000 sf and less than 100,000 sf; large, which is for projects that are between 100,000 and 500,000 sf; and the super-large category, over half a million square feet.  Because we have so many entries in these categories, and because there is often not a lot of difference between the top two projects, this is exactly why we have the “Silver Trowel” category.  A Silver trowel is not automatically awarded to every second-place finisher.  But when the second-place finisher would have won a Golden Trowel the previous year, this shows the need for recognition.   

  2025 Golden Trowel Asia Awards 

 Again, these are awards that are only open to contractors in Asia.   

 A total of 156 different contractors from North and South America, Europe, Central America, Asia, and Australasia have claimed the 415 Trowels awarded in the contest’s 37-year history (1989 through 2025)

Presented by Face® Construction Technologies, Golden Trowel® Awards recognize the flattest and most level floor slabs placed in the world in the previous contest year. To date, 389 Golden Trowels have been presented to 151 different contractors on five continents. Golden Trowel® Gold Plates are awarded to the winner in each category; Golden Trowel® Silver Plates recognize outstanding entries that did not win their category.
A special Golden Trowel®, The “Sam” Award, was established in 2002 to honor “outstanding accomplishments in and contributions to the art and science of high-quality horizontal concrete construction.” The Sam is named in honor of Samuel A. Face, Jr., the late Chairman of The Face Companies.

Applications for each year’s contest are due by September 30. Email info@dipstick.com

The Face® Companies 

427 West 35^th Street
Norfolk, VA 23508
info@dipstick.com

US and Canada 1-800-F-number (1-800-368-6237)

Worldwide 1-757-624-2121