Hello Everyone,
I was hoping some of you could give me a guesstimate on the price of some concrete work. We need two parking pads on our property and we are trying to decide between having concrete poured or putting in pavers. The costs of the pavers are easy to figure out as the prices are listed on the home improvement store’s websites. I would like to get a rough idea of the cost of someone putting in the pads with concrete. If it seems reasonable I’ll call a few companies out for estimates. No need in wasting their time if It looks like It will cost to much.
Here is what we need: Two pads suitable for parking cars on. The first is small, 8’x10’, the second would need to be 12’x30’. Also, I’m not interested in trying to do it myself. I don’t think my back could handle the work. Just a rough thought of what you think it might cost for each would be appreciated. Thanks
Do the math at 4" thick and figure out how many yards of concrete you need. Call the closest Redi-Mix plant and get a price per yard and ask the dispatcher to give you a couple of names for finishers. You need the ground flat, you need some rebar or wire inside a 2x4 frame and depending on what you’re doing, you might need a drain in the middle of each pad or maybe just slope them.
The guys will come the day before, prep the dirt, build the frame, do the leveling and set the steel or wire. The next day the truck will come and back up to the forms and dump the yardage you ordered. If they can’t back up to the forms, figure a few hundred for a pump and operator. Your finishers will wade around and level the dump and as it hardens they’ll smooth it and brush finish it and smooth the edges. Next day, knock the forms off.
Concrete plus wood plus steel plus concrete plus guys.
As mentioned. a crushed stone (“gravel”) base of at leat 4" is required under the slab.
Ideally, there should be 4" of sand below the gravel = therefore you’re looking at 12" below grade
On top of the stone, are blocks about 2" cube with wires sticking out - these are spaced no more than 4’ apart and the wires come out of the top and tie down the steel - a simple mesh my be enough for the smaller pad, but you may be looking at real rebar for the larger.
NOTE: PAVERS NEED THE SAME FOUNDATION - Dumping then on grade will have them bury themselves within the first year.
The price of the 'crete, as the price of the pavers, is a small fraction of the cost of a pad - call contractors, NOT supply houses.
p.s. - telling a redimix place you need 3 yards, how much is that going to cost?" is likely to get you on indefinite hold - there are different grades of 'crete, where you want it dumped. who is going to float it, ground condition (you won’t believe what it costs to have another truck pull the first out of the hole it snuggled into while pumping), etc all figure into it.
If you didn’t know to put down a compacted foundation, you will be MUCH better off paying someone who does - the learning curve is steep and expensive.
This is NOT a DIY - a 4x4 patio you might get away with, depending on soil. Vehicle pads need real foundations and steel.
Good luck.
p.s. - standard slope for drainage is 1/4"per foot - a slanted 4’ wide slab will have one side 1" higher then the other. If you slope if along the 8’ side, there will be 2".
Do not slope the slabs so they drain toward you patio door
You can readily tell the difference between a good finisher and a bad one by the recommended prep work. You really need a good sand/gravel base. Absolutely essentially. Costs more to remove the dirt and add the base, but there is no point in avoiding it.
Around here, I see people who hire out the cheapest local contractors to replace their driveways. The new one goes directly onto the dirt. (There’s never anything under the old driveway, of course. Which is why they are being replaced.) I’ve seen driveways develop huge cracks within 2 years. What a waste.
My uncle who was in the concrete business poured a slab for us over 50 years ago. Not a crack in it. Guess why it’s held up?
At one point, we thought of putting in a concrete patio for our current home. I called around and found the cheapest I could get would be around $5 per square foot. That would be for just a basic rectangular slab, no fancy stuff. If we wanted it to have a pattern of sort pressed into it and/or color, we’d be looking at around $15 per square foot or more.
FWIW, the prices are for the Northern Maryland area.
Also, using pavers is no way to avoid any of the prep work FTG describes. Without careful and thorough preparation, the pavers will go way out of level almost immediately.
Which is more expensive, concrete patio or wood deck?
This Spring I want to install one or the other for the back and if it is affordable I would prefer concrete as all the neighbors wooden decks are weathered and have green spots and leaves fall in the cracks and are a pain to sweep off.
For a wooden deck at ground level they are pretty similar in cost for basic deck material. There’s less prep work for the deck, and you can do it yourself pretty easily. But if you want fancier materials, built in seats, railings, etc., then the price starts climbing. And as you’ve noticed from your neighbors, decks need more maintenance.
Clear heart redwood is gorgeous - and obscenely expensive. “Construction grade B” will do a wonderful job for much less.
With wood, instead of paying upfront on prep, you pay at the rear - after all the lumber is allowed to dry, then cut - SEAL IT.
NOT WITH ANY CRAP YOU SEE ON TV OR IN A BIG BOX STORE.
Count $80/gallon. Applied twice.
The plastic stuff looks good from 20’ - if the esthetics don’t bother you, look into it - the maintenance is less.
Again, keep slope and drainage in mind - you don’t want waves of water coming under the door (at least you won’t need to worry about newspapers landing in puddles any more,
Sidewalk blocks are 2" thick and designed to be walked on by people. Making a vehicle pad with them would involve excavating out all organic material down to undisturbed clay, gravel or pitrun, spreading and compacting (With a jumping jack or backhoe) roadcrush at 4" layers to build it up, leveling it off with a couple inches of compacted sand, and the blocks will still probably crack.
A concrete pad is going to be in the area of $10 a foot installed. If you cant afford to do it properly consider installing a properly prepared (as above) gravel pad and paving at a later date. Note that a concrete slab ‘floats’ and does not require the level of prep that a gravel pad or pavers require.
I had a pad done in September 2010 for my shed. It was $1600 for 12x14. It included grading of the ground underneath, gravel, and then sloping of the lawn around it once it was poured (to provide for good drainage) so I had to pay for dirt, seed, hay and labor (mostly labor on that bit). Also they couldn’t dump directly from the truck so they had to wheel it in, about 150 feet. That probably cost a few extra bucks.