Concrete slab cost

[ustmd]

Last year i had an engineered slab, 40 x 60, poured. 4 loads of material for the pad, 4 ft perimeter beams, #5 rebar in the beams and #3 in a 1'x1' grid. 100 yards of concrete.

$24k

Black land is great for growing crops, not so good for concrete.

-Plowboy 57--what he said...I am on the same black land prairie. I have had 3 engineered slabs don (one for the house, one for an addition and one for my shop). They were all stamped. All of my foundations are pretty much as joeu235 said. I am only one of my neighbors in 17 years who has not had foundation problems.

 

[EddieWalker]

Your soil is famous for being some of the worse there is for building on. You really need to talk to a local pro that has a lot of experience building on that stuff. It's super expansive when it gets wet, and when you have a freeze, anything is possible. Then when the land dries out, you end up with massive cracks in the ground and foundation failure.

From what I've read, you need massive beams in your foundation, which are similar to footings, but bigger, deeper and running around the perimeter and more importantly, through the interior of the base of the slab. Cost for a slab there can easily be twice or three times what it costs for me in East Texas on red clay.

 

[joeu235]

Here is a pic of my shop slab.

 

[bdog]

I find it so interesting what is needed in terms of concrete in different parts of the country. Here most everyone pours what they call a 4” slab but it really is just 3.5” the width of the 2x4 form. I have never seen anyone put anything down or do any compaction. No gravel, no foam just form it up and get to pouring. I have over 500’ of driveway poured this way with no thicker footings on the sides, no rebar, and no mesh. It has been here since the nineties. I own a tandem dump truck and a semi with a 53’ flatbed and drive both down it loaded regularly. Over 200 fully loaded belly dump semis have been down it as well as at least two dozen fully loaded concrete trucks. The only places it has ever been damaged is where people have driven off the edge of it with a big truck. The rest of it is fine. I did make the entryway wider where it was getting tore up on the edges and I did that 5.5” thick with rebar.

My shop has a 3.5” slab and I have had zero damage and it was built in 2010. I drive my 15k tractor in there, my bulldozer, my semi, a couple of 25k internationals, etc.

I know this wouldn’t work in many places but I guess we are lucky here.

 

[nimblemotors]

Interesting problem with the shifting ground. I wonder if you could do what is done when laying tile by floating it over a flexible substrate.
So pour two thin slabs and let the bottom one move around without effecting the top one.

 

[joeu235]

Interesting problem with the shifting ground. I wonder if you could do what is done when laying tile by floating it over a flexible substrate.
So pour two thin slabs and let the bottom one move around without effecting the top one.

The 6 center sections in my above picture are very similar to what you describe with tile work. The contractor put down 6 mil poly, a foot of compacted fill, a layer of poly, another foot of compacted fill, and then a final layer of poly. The fill and poly were put in in such a way that the looked like giant pillows.

 

[joeu235]

I find it so interesting what is needed in terms of concrete in different parts of the country. Here most everyone pours what they call a 4” slab but it really is just 3.5” the width of the 2x4 form. I have never seen anyone put anything down or do any compaction. No gravel, no foam just form it up and get to pouring. I have over 500’ of driveway poured this way with no thicker footings on the sides, no rebar, and no mesh. It has been here since the nineties. I own a tandem dump truck and a semi with a 53’ flatbed and drive both down it loaded regularly. Over 200 fully loaded belly dump semis have been down it as well as at least two dozen fully loaded concrete trucks. The only places it has ever been damaged is where people have driven off the edge of it with a big truck. The rest of it is fine. I did make the entryway wider where it was getting tore up on the edges and I did that 5.5” thick with rebar.

My shop has a 3.5” slab and I have had zero damage and it was built in 2010. I drive my 15k tractor in there, my bulldozer, my semi, a couple of 25k internationals, etc.

I know this wouldn’t work in many places but I guess we are lucky here.

Things definitely change based on soil type. My dad lives 15 miles west of my place. He and I built his house slab ourselves 25 years ago but its on a limestone cliff. 4 inch slab, wire mesh, and barely a foot deep perimeter beams. I dug the beams with a pick ax by hand. Took me a week. I hate that tool now.