I often overlook some of the most basic facts of concrete, so I decided to write this blog to go over some of my favorite material’s most elementary facts.
What concrete is made of?
Concrete is an organic material made primarily of sand, gravel, Portland cement, and water.
Thickness of pours
Depending on your needs, you can save, or waste a ton of money pouring too much or too little of concrete.
Here are some basics for thickness:
-Typical residential concrete surfaces with normal vehicles=4 inches.
-Typical commercial concrete with large trucks and forklifts=6 inches
-Heavy forklift areas, trash dumpster pads, loading areas=6+ inches.
-Heavy machinery, tankers, etc=8+inches
Ground Prep
The base of the concrete pour is often more important than the concrete itself. Grass and roots will eventually rot leaving voids in the ground and can cause a problem. We use track machines, tampers, buggies, etc to compact the soil before pouring concrete. Sometimes gravel, plastic, rebar, wire mesh, etc. are needed.
Access to job site
We need to get thousands of pounds of material to and from the site, so it is important to understand that unless the entire job is to be completed using wheelbarrows or expensive pumps, there will be some wear and tear getting concrete to the site. Access to the site is one of the biggest unknown costs to a project until the estimator can put his eyes on the physical site.
Water drainage
It is important to install concrete with levels and/or lasers to give it the proper drainage to the correct areas. One personal preference is to guide water organically off of the concrete surface without the use of pipes underneath the concrete (but sometimes piping is needed).
Landscaping footprint
As mentioned above, we need to get thousands of pounds of material to and from your job site, so it is best to line up a landscaper for as soon as the concrete work is done. Unless otherwise specified, Baja Concrete does not back-fill, or do landscaping. We thought we would leave this up to the people who specialize in it!
Transportation from plant to job site
It is important to understand the distance from the job site to the plant. If the job site is far from the plant, it is more than likely necessary to put in additives to make sure that the concrete is delivered in a workable state.
I hope this answered some questions that you may have had. If you have any other questions feel free to Contact Us!