Slab foundation building in Maricopa AZ - built to suit the soil under your house

Most people who call us have plans for a new home, an addition or a shop, and they need the ground readied and the slab poured so framing can start. The price moves with the size and thickness of the slab, what the soils test shows, whether the ground calls for a stronger slab design, and how much dirt has to come out and go back in before we form it. The schedule turns on the soils report, the city's plan approval and the weather on pour day. If the slab sits on separate footings, our concrete footings work is part of the same job, and the written estimate I send after measuring spells out what your figure covers.

The job starts with a soils test, because I want to know what the ground does before the slab design is set. Then we dig out the soft dirt, bring in fill and pack the subgrade, the layer the slab sits on, until it's firm. Our crew sets the forms, and I check grades and square before any steel goes in, then we place the rebar, the steel bars that keep cracks from spreading apart, or the post-tensioning cables if that's the design. We pour, finish and keep the slab damp while it cures, the waiting stretch where concrete gains its strength, so the top doesn't dry out too fast and turn weak. The base is the first thing people want to cut because it's buried by the end of day one, and it's the last place I'd save money, since it decides whether your floors crack later.

Some projects need more than a slab. If yours calls for footings and stem walls, that's our foundation installation work, and we plan it with the same soil-first approach. Owners building a shop or storefront often need the lot paved too, and concrete parking lot building is flatwork, the trade's word for any flat poured surface, that we can line up with the slab so one crew handles the site.

The City of Maricopa issues construction permits after it approves your plans, and the permit application and plans have to be submitted electronically before any work begins, so we take care of that paperwork for you. If you're reusing older house plans, ask whether they meet the building codes the city adopted this year, because plans submitted now have to. The city's code also requires the fill under a slab in a permitted building to be treated for termites by a licensed applicator before the concrete goes in, since it rates the termite hazard here as moderate to heavy, though some buildings with non-wood floors and walls are exempt. That treatment has a time limit, and if the fill gets disturbed or the pour runs late, the ground has to be treated again. Once it's down, we keep equipment and feet off the treated ground and stick to the scheduled pour.

Many lots we see around here have been graded with brought-in dirt that isn't always packed well enough to build on, so we dig and compact until the base is firm instead of raking it level and pouring. We run into the same thing on slab jobs in Casa Grande and Chandler.