Cost of concreting an area

Depends where you are and who you hire. Prepare an RFQ and get some bids.

Pay for plenty of steel - it's cheaper in the long run. You probably also want air entrainment, both so the mix can be drier (thus stronger) but still workable, and also for better winter behavior of the completed slab.

12 yards on the small one, 300 yards on the big one. Quite a range there. Was touching 90 bucks a yard rurally and 9 years ago, I'd presume it's only going to cost more in a city and now. Plus preparation/forms, steel, possibly drainage work if I recall your earlier problems correctly, and the labor for placing/finishing it.

Proper reinforcement might also let you use 6", saving 25% concrete volume. Given your location, paying a civil engineer a couple hundred to prepare your bid documents might be worthwhile and let you get a design that is as efficient as possible for what you want to do, saving you money in the long run. In a city, you may _have_ to do that anyway.

You'll also need to schedule plenty of time of for a decent cure to get your money's worth. Start loading it up too early and you can break a slab that would have held up fine with a few more weeks of damp curing. While you can pay extra for high early strength (cures in a week, all things going well), it will still be stronger weeks later, and going easy on it at first (after not going on it at all) will pay off in the long run. Don't put too much faith in spray on sealants for the cure - hosing it down several times daily for a month pays long dividends.

Depends on the cost of concrete locally, as well as labour and re-bar. You are looking at about 350 yards of concrete (assuming 100X 120 ft), plus rebar as far as material cost, plus removal of existing asphalt and "conditioning" of the existing substrate.

Let's just say it will be "substantial"

Holy crap.... now I know why people use gravel, ballast.... LOL

May be cheaper to just re-asphalt, as well. Just patch, patch, patch.

Found a driveway estimator calculator--it's fixed at 4" pour so you'd have to double the area for 8". I messed around to see what it thought concrete prices are in Chicago area and discovered it thinks roughly $275/yd. So, I checked and Wichita comes in at roughly $200. How good the above is I've no clue--I've not done any concrete for so long I really don't know what ready-mix prices are now.

If I do it on that basis of a sq ft (accounting for the 2X thickness difference you asked for), I get Chi-town would be almost $7/sq-ft concrete plus ~$2/ft for excavation, prep, etc. That for a household driveway wouldn't count for steel.

Bring your checkbook! :)

Possibly enquire about re-enforced asphalt products. My neighbour said the company he used to work did some which often got used for domestic drives as SUVs and larger vehicles with power steering often had the wheels turned in place which damages non re-enforced asphalt. Would depend whether it would cope with forklift trucks and other heavy vehicle use though.

Ignoramus1113 fired this volley in news:vpednUbWUZYjjdTSnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Around here, $4.00/sq.ft. formed and finished, for a 4" (nom.) slab.

So figure about 150% of that for 8". The labor is a significant part of the price.

Here, ready-mix 3500psi mud runs about $135/yd, delivered, if you buy it, and about $110/yd if a contractor known to the company buys it.

Lloyd

Hmmm..... how bout just laying down 1/2" steel plate on a (patched) asphalt bed?

A 4x8 weighs in at 640#, and at 50c/lb, this calcs out to exactly $1/sq ft, for sumpn that is essentially indestructible. If the asphalt is freshly applied, ie soft, mebbe even thinner plate would work, if it is laid in right. The system of plates could be made watertight, either with various sealants, or welding.

And slippery as shit (literally) when wet. It would probably freeze sooner.

I don't think you would really want to, and when water did get under it, between it and the asphalt, and then started freezing, I think it would pop the plates up in short order. jk

Back when I worked in CNC service we had a forklift that weighed around

16,000#. The parking lot was asphalt and whenever we needed to bring the forklift out in warmer weather we put down a path of 3/4" plywood which though not particularly thick seemed to fix the problem as long as we didn't park the forklift on it for too long.

You might went to search on the internet for " Soil Stabilization ". And then see if there is anyone in the Chicago area that does it. I am not sure what kind of mess the fork lifts are making. So there some possibility that soil stabilizers can be injected through the asphalt and avoid having to use any concrete. Anyway some thing to check on. I vaguely remember that they used soil stabilization when they built BART in Ca. On the other hand they did not use it when they built the VMPB at Kings Bay.

=20 Dan

I wonder how you got that number. A 1x1 foot half inch plate weighs 18 lbs, and at 50 cents per lb, this comes to $9 per square foot.

I started calling around, first quote was $6.50 psf. For 16x30 feet, it works out to a little above $3k.

i

Pete, I am thinking about putting in concrete about 16 by 30 feet, 8 inches thick. The first quote that I got on this job is $3,250. I will wait for more quotes, but, I think, it is better to do it right than have a lot of hassles and have to pay out plywood all the time I buy or sell something.

What are the soil conditions under the asphalt? e.g. Clay does not provide proper support for concrete or any other surface. Installing proper drainage substrate needs to be part of the bid. As well I've seen concrete installed on 8 inch crushed limestone base install on clay, but no drainage pipe was installed, the clay provided a "swimming pool" and held water such the freeze thaw caused the slab to move at the expansion joints. ignator

We didn't bring the forklift out much, and it was a leased bay in a long industrial park building so it wasn't our lot anyway. The temperature makes a difference too, in winter we could skip the plywood. Heck, here in TX I have to park my truck fully on the 25' section of concrete in front of the garage (that the truck doesn't fit in), if I park a little further forward with the front wheels on the asphalt it will start to sink in the summer.

Make it 16x50 and at least you'll be able to pull a flatbed semi in against one side and have the full length forklift accessible along the other side. 24x50 might be better if you may need to place/remove something fairly deep from between other items on the flatbed.

Must be a lot of that "new math"

So for 100X120 ft you are looking at $78,000. Like I said - "substantial"

Plywood's not cheap.