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.  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.

The 2024 Golden Trowel® contest year ran from September 1, 2023 to August 31, 2024.   inners are announced each year at The World of Concrete in Las Vegas.

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

The Face® Companies also present The Golden Trowel® Asia Awards only to contractors and projects in Asia. The first Golden Trowel® Asia was presented in 2015.

The Golden Trowel has been presented for 36 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 Record this year was from Vietnam. And in 2024, of the 9 Gold and Silver Trowels awarded, 7 were from Brazil, China, Vietnam, and Thailand, and only 2 were 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 26 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. This is obvious when you note that three of this year’s five Golden Trowels and half of the Silver Trowels are going to contractors in Asia!