Slab foundation building in Springfield IL - a floor on firm, evenly packed ground

Most people who call us are planning a new house, an addition or a small building, and they want to know what it will cost and when we can start. The price moves with the size of the slab, how much digging and fill the ground needs, the design you choose and whether the slab is reinforced with steel, since a reinforced slab costs more per square foot than a plain pad. The schedule usually turns on the permit and the weather, and the estimate I write sets out what your own slab will cost so you know exactly what you're paying for before we start.

I start by walking the lot with you to see where the water runs, because a slab that sits low will collect water along its edge for as long as it stands. Our crew then digs out the soft topsoil and builds up the subgrade, the packed soil and stone the slab rests on, compacting it in thin, even layers and checking it across the whole footprint, since the ground matters more than the concrete poured over it. We set the forms and place rebar where the plan calls for it, the steel rods that hold the slab together if it does crack, and on hot days we pour early so the top doesn't dry ahead of the rest and turn weak and dusty. After finishing, we cut the joints we agreed on with you and keep the slab damp while it cures, which is the slow hardening that gives concrete its strength. If a budget has to give somewhere, I'd rather it give on a finish than on the ground work, because a finish can be redone and the base can't be reached once it's under concrete.

Slab work often sits beside other concrete on the same project. If your plans call for a basement, crawlspace or foundation walls instead of a slab, that's our foundation installation work, and small property owners putting up a shop or office often have us pour the lot around it through our concrete parking lot building service, since the same base work carries both.

Permit applications go to the City of Springfield Building & Zoning Department, and a new building in a floodplain needs a floodplain development permit from the city first. The city also makes plain that a permit doesn't vouch for the land itself, so research on soil compaction and on mine subsidence, the ground sinking over old mines, falls to you as the owner, and the city sends questions about it to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources at 217-782-0588. We check what the office asks for at your address and take care of the permit paperwork for our work, and if the city needs something from you, such as that soil research, I'll let you know early so it doesn't hold up the pour.

Our winters freeze the ground, and concrete has to go on soil that isn't frozen, because frozen ground thaws and settles after the pour and can break the slab from underneath. When a pour lands in cold weather, we wait until the ground under it has thawed, which can move the start date, and the same planning goes into the slabs we build in Chatham and Decatur.