Concrete floor installation in Redding CA - a slab that keeps ground moisture out

Most people call because an old floor is cracked, uneven or damp, or because they're adding a room or a shop and need a slab under it. The price moves with the size and thickness of the floor, how much digging and base the ground needs, whether an old slab has to come out first with concrete cutting, and how easily we can get concrete to the spot. The schedule mostly turns on the prep and the weather, because the base has to be right before the truck comes and summer pours here start early. Your written estimate spells out what's included for your floor.

We start by digging down to firm ground and packing the subgrade, the dirt and base the slab sits on, because a floor raked level over loose soil settles right along with it. Then we lay the sheet that goes under the slab and check it for holes and torn seams before any concrete goes on it, since that sheet is what keeps ground moisture out of your floor. We set the forms and the screeds, the guides we level the surface to, place rebar so the steel holds the slab together, and pour once everything underneath is right. After finishing we cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a straight line to crack along, and keep the new concrete covered and curing so the top comes out hard instead of weak and dusty. If a budget gets tight, the base is the first thing people want to trim and the last thing I'll cut, because nobody sees it on pour day and everybody sees it when a floor sinks.

A new floor often has work around it. If the floor is for a pool house or a covered area by the water, we can pour concrete pool decks in the same visit, and when the floor sits above the yard we build concrete steps up to the door so every rise is even.

Redding's own building findings say our climate, ground and terrain can put excess water under slabs, and the city has seen water come up through floor slabs into buildings here. That's why the city's ordinance calls for a polyethylene vapor retarder, a plastic sheet, or an approved equivalent between a concrete floor and the base or prepared ground. Rules get updated, so ask the city, or ask me when I come out, about the current one. Around here that sheet does real work, which is why we check it so closely before the pour.

Summer heat is the other thing. The city counts over 39 days a year at 100 degrees, and an Illinois ready-mix group's hot-weather advice is to deliver, place and finish promptly, pouring early in the morning whenever possible. We're based in Redding and plan summer floors around an early start, and we work the same way on jobs in Anderson and Shasta Lake.