Specs 24’x24′. 6″ slab wiremesh, 6″ compacted stone. 16″w x8″ H footing. 8″ Concrete wall or block on top of footing. Approx 32″ high. The jobsite condition is not unusual. Very flat, open acccess, nothing to add to cost of job. State is SE Pennsylvania. What would be a guesstimate to this garage concrete slab foundation? Price would include all the concrete work, excavation, rough grading etc… Thanks.
Mike
Replies
$10K
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Just the crete and block work is about seven or so. I guess I'm seeing same total as Mike. Need to know more.
What is an H footing?
Are you in a hurry and on a schedule or is this a good weather, do it when I can get to it type job. Insulating, heating, adding chemical, and the agravation of it all could add another grand to it depending on your attitude and mine.
Excellence is its own reward!
H footing represents height in inches. 16" wide x 8" high footing. From this board I have gotten $5000- 10,000 estimate. Whos right? Thanks.
"Whos right?"
everybody's right HaHa
What makes ya think there's only one answer?
Mine is $9,850.89, plus or minus 150%
View Image
Barry E
I'dike to see that estimate minus 150%...................(-:Q: Which sexual position produces the ugliest children? A: Ask your Mom.
It's not like that hasn't happened to me before this. <G>
View Image
Barry E
Get back to me in a month..Giving bids out on my concrete work for my addition in about three weeks which includes a 30X30' garage. Very accesable site. No serious issues at all. Located on Long Island in NY.
I'm thinking that with all the work "besides" the garage (shop) I should get a "decent" #(with twelve ya get eggroll). We shall see.
Be ready for high prices
Namaste'
Andy"Attachment is the strongest block to realization"http://CLIFFORDRENOVATIONS.COM
well, i'm right.. but i'll understand if you want to sacrifice quality and hire someone elseMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I was thinkin it must be about Mike's turn to be right.
View Image
Barry E
Thanks for the pricing info on the slab. A contractor is working right next to the area of the garage and gave a ball park of $4500. He said he would do the slab at the same time he poured the others. I work for myself and I have tried the quality line myself and sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.
Mike
I see the H now. I was reading it as style rather than indication to go with the dimension.
Mike and I are right for our area, of course, and for businessmen who have learned not to compete on price but on quality. I'm sure there are places where you could get all this for six grand but it might be dicey whether it's good work or not.
That price is for if everythiong goes just right. Guys who constantly bid at bottom doallart and are forced to do so by letting their competition set their prices end up losing moiney, going out of business or traking the occasional customer for a ride. Concrete contractors and roofers seem to be amoung the lowest class of subcontractor, partly because it involves a little more back muscle and a little less head muscle than most jobs. Almost anybody can get into it, so there are places where almost anybody does. That means you have guys calling themselves concrete contractors who don't have the foggiest idea how to read a set of plans or how portland products actually cure up. They know nothing about business and insurance so they bid too low and drive prices down for the guys who do try to do a good job.
IMO, There is almost no trade more prone to receiving complaints than the crete guys. There is a very wide range of men doing it. Some deserve high praise for what they accomplish. Others should be run out of town or out of the country - no - out of the world!
So tell us why you need to know. Is this for budgeting a future job? I suspect you have already gotten the job done and are looking for information to jack the guy around because that is the reason for most of these queries of this type. Tell us more and you can get better advice.
.
Excellence is its own reward!
$7000.00 In the Northeast.
Besides the indirect downsides you mention to underpricing, I've seen some examples of another consequence.
Insufficient cash flows into a home cause emotional problems. Maybe not ones self, but with the spouse or kids. Of course, good family values and love overcome, but solving the underlying issue of insufficient cash flow goes a long way towards making them go away.
Pay yourself what you're worth. If your job is as good as the next guy's, why aren't you able to get what he gets? Why does your family have to bear the ultimate responsibility for somebody's "good deal?"
Well stonefever, one answer to you would be from the other end of the stick, the guy building the garage so he can have some happiness and try to overcome the problems associated with lack of income.
It's the same for both directions.
I'd say $4K-$7K in central NY area.
You are absolutely correct. It is the same for both sides.
Now both sides have to show the other the same respect. For however that is defined.
The job is not complete and I do not intend to jack someone around. I thought $4-5000 would be close to do the work. This is close to what I received an estimate so far. Work is being done right next to this planned garage and the contractor quoted in the above range. I thought by having his machinery already there and all the other adv's it would drop the price significantly. Thanks for the pricing info.
Mike
DIY,
scrap lumber for forms, reclaim stone, mix at stiff 4 sack mix, my DIY price comes to $565. Don't watch stupor bowl, get some exercise and DIY.
Add $350 for used mixer if you don't have one.
I also assume you're using some form of steel scrap as rerod.
But your 4 bag mix... If I were to spend that much effort on the project (and I have done such wild things), there ain't no way that I would skimp on cement. I'd use 6. Just cause I know it's six and not 4.
Wouldn't that in itself jump your cost to 8K?(;>)
Cereally, can you get a decent used mixer for $350? I recall the Sears model I bought myself for a wedding present 25 years ago. I paid $279 for it. Just gave it away to a great kid for helping me. It works as well now as it did then. But we all need a good mixer. Even if you gotta store it at your mothers house.
Edited 1/21/2003 9:49:21 PM ET by stonefever
You are right, there ain't hardly no such thing as 'scrap' rebar - cheapest nowadays is still 8 cents a pound, I've really looked in the past for free and never found any. But free slightly rusty chain link fence works pretty well and is plentiful, but I forgot you need to add another few hundred for a surplus vibrator for the wall or develop the 'ol triceps with the spud tool!
scrap lumber for forms, reclaim stone, mix at stiff 4 sack mix, my DIY price comes to $565. Don't watch stupor bowl, get some exercise and DIY.
I'm on a thread thieving tear tonight for which I apologize...
Along those same lines, anyone know a good book to read for someone who knows zilch about concrete but is interested, in the future, in applying the sort of economics junkhound illustrated? I'm not interested in building highways, maybe just a slab for a shed... getting anyone to come out for such a small job around here is next to impossible, and costs $$$.
Holy smokes, google searched to reply with the Eshbach's text I learned from years ago and got a sticker shock (got a used copy of the first edition for a buck, flabbergasted at today's price!!!)
First hit:
http://www.wileyeurope.com/cda/product/0,,0471890847%7Cdesc%7C2752,00.html
Here in western pa, if I could get $5500.00 to do all work mentioned I'd feel real lucky.
That's barely working for wages! Are you figuring for excavation and six inches of stone tamped? Don't forget he wants it rough graded too! It would cost me seven to sub out the crete and masonry. the crete is expensive here to the island but not that much more, or is it?
Fourteen yards at a hundredten is $1540 for starters....
Excellence is its own reward!
A hundred ten for concrete? Holy Toledo!
Top flight batchplant here, union truck drivers (and I must say, good, helpful drivers), great equipment: $72 per yard, 3500# mix, within 10 miles delivery; standby time extra, of course. Here, I would anticipate the $110 on a small order of 3 yds. or less.
And I'm quoting current prices...just did a 16 yd. pour last week.
Must have to do with energy and transportation costs.
Jules Quaver for President 2004
Edited 1/21/2003 11:06:12 PM ET by Notchman
The pour for this footer would be a three yard delivery. Eleven for the slab. Two trucks to co-ordinate.
My base price is eighty bucks for 3500# mix with 3/4" stone but when you add ferry tickets, waiting time, etc. ( maybe hot water and chemical) it all works out on the average to 110 so that's what I figure with. On a large load and a lucky day, I might squeek by for as low as 87 but if I bid that way, I can count on losing money.
You wanna talk expensive? Try getting a pumper out to the island!!! I think I was the first one to do it. Happens pretty regular now..
Excellence is its own reward!
What type pumper? I use a guy around here for small pours or grouting block walls that has one of those tow behind the pickup pumps...saves a lot of wheelbarrow work and the pump guy handles the hose. ($23 a yard for him). Use the big boom pump on the bigger jobs. Can you get one of those guys out there?Jules Quaver for President 2004
Here's some recent pours, both type pumps:Jules Quaver for President 2004
I saw a lot of guys with those tow behinds in S. California. Some of the boys got real proud about them and would have them all chromed up and spotless. You'd think they were some show vechicle or something. A couple of years ago when I did a garage floor pour, I used on of them and he cost me $200 for the job.
The old boy who has this one used to live in LA and had 9 or 10 of them down there...moved up here to raise his kids.
His machine is long past chromobility! I have shot of his pump somewhere where the diesel smoke is so thick you can hardly see the mixer and it set off the smoke alarm in the neighbor's house.
However, he's saved me a lot of wheelbarrowing and bucketing and shoveling and sometimes $200 to $300 is a pretty attractive price to my old bones!Jules Quaver for President 2004
Yes, but ... different places have different prices. I'm becoming painfully aware of this as I see what other parts of the country get for things. What qualifies as low wages in your place is pretty high on the hog in my neck of the woods. And concrete costs different too - we just got some 3500psi fiber reinforced last week for $70/yd. Some people still look at you like "why you wasting the money on . . . "
Here's where your stomach turns, flatwork for a driveway, where you remove the old, haul it off, level, compact, and put in a new one is about $4.25 / sf for the high end guys.
Funny though, sounds like plumbers and electricians aren't as far off. The guy I use for plumbing is good, but about as cheap as it gets around here at $65/hr, electricians you get a bear and a cub for $85. " Clothes make the man. Naked people have litte or no influence in society" - Mark Twain
I could get that done 1st rate in TN for 5k any day of the week... and have 5 guys lined up say'n "man i could have saved you 2k on that job"
i'll bet you're right....
but the sherrif would be auctioning off your equip. if you did many for that here ......Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Detached garage, 2 cars plus storage bay, 22 x 31/6, 4" slab on gravel base, 4' walls on 8x18" footings, slab bottom dropped to 8" across entry, with 2' apron x 24". Total concrete 23 c.y. Reinforcement all about the way you described. Excavate and grade is part of the whole house package but I figure it is worth about $2250. The whole thing will be a few bucks under $7K where I live, in the northeast.
Hey Mike, They're all undercutting our prices, even in NY, one of the highest taxed states in the country ( I know 'cause Maine is right in there with it)
Should we get out of the business?.
Excellence is its own reward!
No. You should sub all your garage slab work to them.
what can i say... they don't live on an island... and they ain't been doing it as long as you & me...
sometimes with age , comes wisdom........
'sides... i didn't wanna do the job anyway... i'm saving myself for something interesting & challenging...
.. hope-a, hope-a, hope-aMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Piffin, What Part of the country are you in?
Island off the coast of Maine..
Excellence is its own reward!
Well, after all the prices you've been exposed to now, maybe you'll agree with me and get off your lazy butt and DIY. <G>
Mixing concrete sure beats the heck out of jogging or paying to work out in a gym.
Your last sentence is the key.
What is accomplished or created by peddling some stationary bike at the "Show?"
Now getting down and digging those footers and such by hand beats the intensity of the workout and leaves something that you can sit back and say, "I did that."