Getting started on 30x50 garage/shop build

Concrete by itself was quoted around $5,500 for:

30x50 5 inch slab, plus perimeter footers (2' deep x 1' wide)
50x9' exterior apron on the side of the building (4" deep)
4' x 30' 4" exterior slab on front of building

Wow! I got quoted 3x that for a 18x26 4'' garage slab if I did the demo and prep work!
 
Wow! I got quoted 3x that for a 18x26 4'' garage slab if I did the demo and prep work
The $5,500 is just the concrete, it's another $5,800 or so for the forming/finishing labor. I expect price on concrete to have gone up since I got it quoted.

I also need a larger footing at my two center sidewall columns which I was not planning on, as they are set inside the sidewall girts (didn't notice this till I was studying my building plans more closely)-- which means the anchor bolts won't all hit the 1' wide footing I was planning on. So I have to go with a 2' x 2' square footing in those two column locations. I also need a 1-1/2" drip ledge on each side so the side panels don't touch the concrete. With these changes I'll be happy if I can keep concrete and labor under $12-13k, but I also am responsible for providing materials (vapor barrier, rebar, wire mesh, etc) and the cost to dig the footings.

It's been raining all week here and won't let up for another few days, so probably won't be any progress for a bit. I'm working on getting someone lined up to dig the footings. I just need footings dug and concrete poured sometime this month, the building kit itself won't be here till May 2nd.
 
Update: My concrete guy/company (local guy with a business that employs 4-5 family members) seems to have flaked out on me. Lined the schedule up in February, he said they'd fit me in mid to late April at the latest. When mid April came around, I gave him a call to see how the schedule was looking. Told me it's looking like late April because of rain delays on his other projects, which I don't blame him, we had 2 weeks of solid rain. He suggested to speed things up, to have someone else dig the footings (he recommended a guy that had free time), and have that guy pour perimeter footing and column bases to grade level (no forming required, you just dump concrete in a trench), then he'd form/pour and finish the slab on top of the footings.

That doesn't work for a steel frame red-iron building; I have two column locations that have anchor bolts embedded down about 15" -- so the anchor bolts would be set into two pieces of concrete poured separately that have a cold joint in between, not good. And I need a form (the wood perimeter they pour concrete into) to place the anchor bolts accurately before the pour. If you're going to do separate pours, you have to form the footings to top of concrete slab (that doesn't exist yet), then come in afterwards and pour the slab in between. He seems very unfamiliar with the type of building I'm putting in.

I called him back a day later and told him I'd like to do the monolithic pour we originally planned on even if I had to wait awhile. That's when phone responses started to become infrequent and now non-existent. Bummer.

So now to plan B. There's a concrete company the owner of the business I work for is pretty good friends with (they've done work for us many times), located across the street from my work. I would have talked with them initially but a guy I work with told me they only do commercial stuff and don't travel out of town (I'm about 35 miles away). How wrong he was, they travel all over and do pretty much anything with concrete, even small jobs. Soonest they can come out to look at the site and give an firm estimate is May 8th. So looks like I'll be waiting a bit. I have a feeling they'll be more expensive, but I know they do good work and will get the job done when they say they will. They're booked like everyone else is, but being a bigger company, he said he can squeeze this "small" job in pretty quickly once they take a look at it and we settle on scope / pricing.
 
It's May 16th, so did the guy come out?
Yep, we worked everything out and he's able to fit me in within the next 2-3 weeks. Price increase was negligible considering he's doing everything from A-Z. Aprons (and site work for aprons, I just have the main slab area prepared right now), digging footings, casting the anchor bolts, etc. He's also going with rebar for slab reinforcement in lieu of wire mesh (says the wire mesh is too labor intensive and if not done right, always winds up at the bottom anyways). This company has all their own equipment, so this will be basically a turn-key affair, whereas the first contractor I was working with (that flaked out) would have required me to provide materials and find someone else to dig the footings- meaning I'd have to coordinate multiple schedules. So less hassle on my end and probably worth the wait.

Problem is it pushes the schedule back enough that I'll likely be putting the building up in summer weather, which I was trying to avoid. Oh well, gotta roll with the punches...
 
Another stumbling block -- cement shortage! Ugh, what other kind of monkey wrench can be thrown into this building project.. Freak hurricane in Kentucky while I'm putting it up? Anything is possible at this point. Bad time to be doing construction.

All the ready-mix concrete companies that deliver to my address are on a cement allocation. After talking with a couple, presently they get enough cement to mix about 20 yards concrete per day, but they expect the situation to improve soon. Some bigger commercial jobs can take 1-4 weeks to fill, given the cement allocation. Small residential jobs get put in the queue.

My concrete contractor is out of Louisville and he was able to convince the company he usually works with to drive out this far (hour drive time for a concrete truck), they are not currently experiencing a shortage. Problem is the stars have to align just right with driver / truck availability and weather. Best case scenario is I'll have concrete end of next week, or it could possibly be 1-2 weeks after. Very frustrating, but I'm doing my best not to get stressed over it.
 
Another stumbling block -- cement shortage! Ugh, what other kind of monkey wrench can be thrown into this building project.. Freak hurricane in Kentucky while I'm putting it up? Anything is possible at this point. Bad time to be doing construction.

All the ready-mix concrete companies that deliver to my address are on a cement allocation. After talking with a couple, presently they get enough cement to mix about 20 yards concrete per day, but they expect the situation to improve soon. Some bigger commercial jobs can take 1-4 weeks to fill, given the cement allocation. Small residential jobs get put in the queue.

My concrete contractor is out of Louisville and he was able to convince the company he usually works with to drive out this far (hour drive time for a concrete truck), they are not currently experiencing a shortage. Problem is the stars have to align just right with driver / truck availability and weather. Best case scenario is I'll have concrete end of next week, or it could possibly be 1-2 weeks after. Very frustrating, but I'm doing my best not to get stressed over it.


20 yards is nothing to a concrete business. Hope things pick up soon for you.
 
20 yards is nothing to a concrete business. Hope things pick up soon for you.
Yeah that’s 2 trucks, one load each per day. That doesn’t sound right. My neighbor owns a concrete business and they must have 30+ trucks all doing multiple loads a day.

OP, hope they can get you some concrete. Is the monolithic pour more common there or was it something specified in the plans? In my area everyone pours the footing and has it stick up a foot or so from grade and then pours the floor later.
 
Shortages are getting crazy, even infant formula is going nuts to find.
Of all things I got my natural gas bill last week. They always provide a return envelope for my payment. (Yes, I am old and still send checks... LOL) It was printed on my bill that no return envelope was enclosed, due to supply shortage. Give me a break.

After I called and paid them with a credit card...too late. But someone suggested I mail them a note with no check enclosed, due to supply shortage. Missed my chance there! I bet even the people working there would have gotten a chuckle out of that!

As they turned off my gas..........;)
 
Shortages are getting crazy, even infant formula is going nuts to find.
Of all things I got my natural gas bill last week. They always provide a return envelope for my payment. (Yes, I am old and still send checks... LOL) It was printed on my bill that no return envelope was enclosed, due to supply shortage. Give me a break.

After I called and paid them with a credit card...too late. But someone suggested I mail them a note with no check enclosed, due to supply shortage. Missed my chance there! I bet even the people working there would have gotten a chuckle out of that!

As they turned off my gas..........;)


Soon we will be making our own envelopes. Learned how in grade school.
 
Yeah that’s 2 trucks, one load each per day. That doesn’t sound right. My neighbor owns a concrete business and they must have 30+ trucks all doing multiple loads a day.

OP, hope they can get you some concrete. Is the monolithic pour more common there or was it something specified in the plans? In my area everyone pours the footing and has it stick up a foot or so from grade and then pours the floor later.

It's no joke-- I live in a rural area, so the ready-mix companies aren't huge outfits and aren't running anywhere near 30+ trucks. Probably why they're short on cement while bigger companies in Louisville seem to be fine at the moment. I called 6-7 places, all the way south to Bowling Green (just for grins). They all say the same thing-- they're limited by the cement they can get, so get in line.

With a stick built building, yes, you'd want to pour the footing up a little higher than top of slab to alleviate moisture concerns with wood and any drywall you might want to install, then pour the slab. I could go either way with a steel frame building, as the footing only needs to be same height of the slab-- but monolithic saves a lot of time and $$; they can form and prep all at one time and come back the next day to pour it all in one shot. With a monolithic pour, you increase your chances of shrinkage cracks where the 5" slab meets the turndown footing (that goes 2' deep past frostline), but that's purely cosmetic, if it occurs.
 
Progress at last. Monolithic pour ended up not being an option, local companies can't deliver concrete for weeks, even state/federal road projects in this area are on pause because they can't get concrete. The concrete contractor I'm using is out of Louisville, and he was able to get his usual ready-mix company to travel this far out (about an hour drive). But they couldn't tie up that many trucks in one day, so we had to pour footers today (three trucks), and slab/aprons will be poured Thursday or Friday.

Mid 90's today with a good dose of humidity made for awful working conditions, but getting close to the finish line on concrete, I hope.

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Well you are making way more progress than I am. My footers were poured months ago, but I have been having issues getting block and masons to lay it. I think I may have a crew starting tomorrow. I got cement and sand delivered today but still no block :(
 
well I won't hijack your thread after this, but color me surprised. After hearing the block was going to be delivered at least 5 times already, this showed up today :)

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No worries about hijacking, actually happy to hear I'm not the only one with supply and labor troubles-- makes me feel better about the situation I'm in! LOL. Glad you got your stuff delivered finally, and my slab/apron pour actually got moved up a day (tomorrow!) because of rain chances Thursday and Friday. Sad thing is, temperature forecast is still mid to high 90's and humid until late this weekend (a long stretch this hot is unusual this time of year), which is not conducive to concrete curing and ultimate strength. They add finishing retarders at the ready-mix plant, but only so much you can do for curing. If all went according to schedule, I'd be putting up my steel building in early May when the weather was still cool. Now I'll be doing it in summer which is what I was trying to avoid... Oh well, gotta roll with the punches.

Some pictures from today, which is prep for slab pour tomorrow. Went with #4 (1/2") rebar at about 6-7' centers for the slab. If money was no object I'd have done 3' centers / used more steel, but my concrete guy (which I'm well acquainted with) assured me that for what I'm doing and the stable base I have (local soil conditions), he all but guaranteed I'd have no settling issues in my lifetime. Good enough for me. He got my floor drain in, electrical conduit stub-up, and extra reinforcement for the 2-post lift pads.

The concrete strip in the photos is actually part of the building slab-- in order to pour the slab and side apron @ same time without re-forming work and a 3rd mobilization from Louisville (not cheap), it had to be done this way. So I'll have a seam in the concrete 2' inside the building on that side, but it's tied together nicely with rebar and shouldn't be any worse aesthetically than the normal expansion joints they'll be cutting anyways. Slick finish for the inside of the building and brush finish for the outside aprons. I'm getting excited, will post more pictures tomorrow when they finish everything up.

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Quick update on the building progress. Concrete slab was poured Wednesday, wife spent Saturday putting sealer on the main slab, and I sealed the aprons this morning. Perfect weather this weekend (sunny high 70's), so it was a good time to bring the steel package home so I could root through everything and take inventory. Because of my long delay getting concrete the building kit has been sitting at my work where I could keep it out of the weather for the last month and a half; I left the sheeting there until I'm ready for it.

My kids' father's day present this year was manual labor, between me and the three older kids (wife helped some), we had 4-5+ thousands pounds of steel unloaded by hand in a few hours, and that was with taking plenty of breaks.

Went through all the framing members, everything is there, but did notice a missing hole on one of the columns. I'll spend the next few days going through everything else and studying drawings to make sure I know what the heck I'm doing. Probably won't be erecting anything for about 2 weeks, I've got to schedule a week off work and I'll spend the rest of this week doing very little (supposed to be high 90's to low 100's most of the week) except prep work.

Concrete guys did a great job with the finish work, but holding a steady elevation not so much. I have one column placement that's about 7/8" lower than the highest one. Most are decent, right in the middle of the low & high (5 out of the 9?), but I'll have to shim the low column, and cut some concrete out & grout it flat at the highest ones to match the middle ones. I'm okay with a 1/4" tolerance, anything more than that just makes life more difficult when you erect everything. Shouldn't be a huge ordeal, but something I would have preferred not to have to do.

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After a long hiatus waiting for the dog days of summer to get over (I had almost zero desire to put this up in 90+ degree heat when I spend 8 hours a day at work in it), project is finally moving along.

Had three helpers today (with kids as gophers) and we got the building frame up in about 6-1/2 hours. Now I need the plumb/square it all, which has been a bit tricky because the concrete guys were off a bit on anchor bolt placement in places; nothing major. Tomorrow's project if rain isn't too bad. Once that's done, tighten all the bolts, frame in man door & get to work insulating and sheeting. This coming week looks like solid good weather and I took the week off work-- hopefully will make good progress.

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Would you share with us why you went with the heavier PEMB red iron type versus the newer, "lightweight" metal building?

I was looking at doing a 30x40 and about to get started in March 2020 and then...... So I waited, then materials doubled, tripled, so I bought a boat instead.
 
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