Before we moved on to the walls, we first completed the garage slab floor. We could have done it at roughly the same time as pouring the rest of the foundation, but we decided to wait until later because we needed a little break in between concrete pouring days. We now needed to complete the garage slab before we started building the exterior walls because our garage is attached to our house.
We already had the stem wall poured around the outside, and the middle was filled with native soil (dirt that hasn’t been disturbed or moved).
If you are pouring a slab anywhere, it’s best to disturb the soil as little as possible. If you pour concrete on top of dirt that hasn’t had a long time to settle, then it will cause cracking.
We did have to move a little dirt around to get it kind of leveled back out, but we tried not to mess with it too much.
Before we dive in to the explanations, there are some rules that we learned when pouring a slab of concrete:
- It must be poured on a solid foundation. People who know what they are talking about refer to this as “compaction”. Yes, you can pour on top of just dirt, but the risk of cracking goes up if it isn’t 100% compaction. Most everyone that I know of puts gravel down on top of the dirt to help this problem. If you have 5+ inches of gravel, then it’s considered 100% compaction because the rocks will hold their place better than the dirt.
- It is highly recommended to put rebar down or fiber mesh to reinforce the concrete and further prevent the cracking issue. Just like with screws vs nails, I discovered that there is a bit of a rebar vs fiber mesh debate. Rebar has been used for a very long time. Fiber mesh is a much newer approach. We will discuss those two in better detail in just a minute.
- You need A LOT of helpers.
- It’s all about timing.
- Wear rubber boots and disposable gloves.
Oddly enough, I learned that I LOVE working with concrete. It’s like mud for an adult. In fact, everyone just calls it “mud” anyways. My favorite part is after you have made your “creation”, it hardens and stays there forever. No mean kid can come over and ruin your mud castle with one stomp. No, I do not have any traumatic childhood memories of someone destroying my mud castle, but I do remember how sad I was every time I had to take apart or throw away something that I created. This is art that you get to keep forever! You can even draw a picture or write your name in it if you want to.
So let’s get into the nitty gritty shall we?
First thing we needed to do was achieve that 100% compaction I was talking about. We had native soil in the middle of our garage, but we had to remove the dirt around the edges when we poured the stem wall. We filled a lot of that back in first, and packed it down real well, so that we wouldn’t have to fill every hole with gravel (which costs money).
In a minute you will notice a wooden box in the back corner… We planned to have an insulated garage, and we wanted to put the furnace for our HVAC system in there rather than designating a closet/room inside the house for it. That box is a space that we needed to keep open so that the ductwork could travel from the furnace down into the crawl space underneath our house.
If you plan to put your furnace inside your garage, this is definitely something you need to be aware of. In fact, any system you plan to put in your garage needs to be thought through before you pour your concrete. It’s NO FUN to have to go back and drill through concrete because you forgot something.
We called several HVAC companies for quotes ahead of time (like 3 months earlier). I did my homework, narrowed it down, and decided which company we wanted to hire. Then I made sure to discuss with him where we wanted our furnace, and I asked him exactly what we needed to do before pouring our slab. He let me know that they needed a 20″ x 20″ hole to be able to get all of the necessary ductwork in and out of our crawl space. So farmer set up a box before we poured the concrete slab. All set!
Do this for any “system” you may be putting in your garage. Check to make sure you are prepared for where they need to run all of their lines in and out of your garage. And, as always, plan ahead. If you intend to convert your garage into something later on, decide now what the layout will be so you can make good decisions about where to place things.
For example: If you ever plan on adding a toilet and sink in your garage, it would be best to put those plumbing lines in now and hide them in a wall for later. It will make your remodel job 10 x’s easier, and less expensive, when you are finally ready to do it.
After you have everything set up correctly and you know you aren’t forgetting anything, you can order the gravel. You will need to decide how thick you want to put it. The thicker the better, to a certain point. Obviously you don’t need 3 feet of gravel. 6-8″ is what was recommended to us. However, we didn’t have quite that much depth space, so we went with 5″ of gravel and the intention of using reinforcing fiber mesh in the concrete. Just ask the gravel or concrete company what they recommend if you don’t know how deep to lay it.
We used our loader tractor to spread the gravel out a bit, and then all the guys grabbed shovels and rakes to even it out.
Once it was mostly level, we set up a little leveling system so we could make sure everything was even and perfectly flat. First, stakes and a board were put down the center of the garage so we could do just one side at a time. Josh used a long 2×8 piece of wood that would stretch all the way across from one side of the garage to the board in the middle. Then he cut it so it would slip down in between those two. He attached another piece of wood on each end that would hold the 2×8 at the correct height off the ground. He also used a level to check and make sure it was sitting flat.
This way, the guys could side their contraption across the gravel and see what areas were too high and what areas were too low.
After some muscle and sweat, the gravel was all leveled out and ready for concrete.
I have to add in one step for everyone that may be choosing to use rebar instead of fiber mesh. We used fiber mesh, so it was already inside the wet concrete. If you are using rebar, you will need to set up your grid now, before the concrete is ordered.
Rebar is just long metal poles usually placed in a grid pattern. Then you pour the concrete on top of it and it helps hold everything in place. Fiber mesh is tiny pieces of material within the concrete itself.
Ask a concrete professional how close your rebar needs to be. It may also tell you on your blueprints. It’s simple to remember that the more rebar you put in, the more reinforced it will be. So if you are concerned at all, just add more rebar.
If you would like to read more information about the rebar we used in our foundation, and how to install it, you can CLICK HERE.
You may also need to set up an inspection before pouring the concrete, so check your permit paper or call your building department to make sure.
K, now the next instruction is important! DON’T FREAK OUT!
Pouring concrete can be really scary, but it will all turn out okay. The most important piece of advice that I have is to make sure you have PLENTY of helpers.
If you plan to hire it out, then you don’t need to worry about this. The crew will handle it all. You can just sit back and watch the excitement.
But if you plan to do it yourself, you will need several people to help out. We needed more people on concrete pouring days than for any other time during our build. It’s all about the timing.
So before you schedule the concrete truck, please make sure you have all of your people lined up. They DO NOT need to be professionals, though someone needs to know what they are doing in your group. If you don’t know, spend a few days watching youtube videos and you will be fine. (*Personal opinion*) Also I will be putting up a video of my own on the videos and tutorials page soon. I will let you know when that’s up.
On this particular concrete pouring day we had Josh, Matt, and Mikey (all with a little concrete pouring experience), Farmer, and myself and the kids. Obviously the four little kids and I were of basically no use. However, we could run and grab more water when needed, hand tools to the guys so they didn’t have to get out of the concrete, and take pictures and videos of course. Oh yeah, and provide entertainment and food when necessary.
We were pouring a slab about 700 square feet. And we estimated it would take all morning and into the afternoon a little.
Here is a list of the supplies and tools we needed on hand that day:
- clothes that can be ruined
- tall rubber boots
- a screed (ours was homemade)
- a bull float
- a magnesium float (mag)
- a steel trowel
- a groover and edger (to make the seams with)
- kneel on pad
- a shovel
- buckets and water
- anything you will be placing in your wet concrete
- concrete truck
- extra people
In the early morning, before the concrete truck showed up, the guys gathered their supplies and made sure everything was ready to pour. You will need to make sure your slab area is completely enclosed so you won’t be losing concrete. Our stem walls had a break in them where our garage doors would go, so we needed to put up a board to stop the concrete from spilling out.
If you aren’t pouring inside of an enclosed area (like a stem wall) you will need to build forms of some kind around the edges. You can CLICK HERE to learn more about how we built our forms. Note that this will take a day or two so should not be left until pour day if you are forming up the whole thing.
Since we didn’t have our well drilled yet, it was my job to make sure we had plenty of available water. I filled a few 5 gallon buckets with water for them to rinse tools and hands. We (and by “we” I mean Farmer did it) also put together a hilariously long hose line strung clear across our property and the irrigation canal and over to our orchard pond on the other side, about 500 feet away. If I didn’t love to garden, and have a million hoses laying around, I don’t know that we would have been able to make that work. But it got the job done!
Tall rubber boots are a must have for this project. The guys were all literally standing in the wet concrete while they moved it around. Even if you had a pair of shoes you were willing to ruin, they wouldn’t be able to slide in and out of the mud like rubber boots will.
Gloves are also highly recommended. We used the cheap ones and just threw them away when we were done. If you choose not to wear gloves, just know that your hands will be a little beat up and very very dry at the end.
The screed that we used was just that homemade board I talked about earlier that stretched from one side of the garage to the half way point. First we used it for the gravel, then we adjusted it and used it for the wet concrete. They make real screeds, we just didn’t have one, so we made one out of lumber. All it needs to do is be perfectly flat, and scrape the concrete off at the correct height. It’s the first tool you will use to start scraping it out level.
A bull float is used after the screed. It is a larger float that smoothes out the concrete over a large space quickly. You can attach a long handle to it so you can reach a long distance over your slab and not have to stand on your wet mud.
A magnesium float (aka mag) is a small hand tool used after the bull float to smooth it out even better.
And finally, a steel trowel is the final hand tool used to kind of seal off the top layer and make it look extra smooth and nice.
There are a lot of different types of floats. I found a great article that talks about them in an easy to understand way, so you can decide if other floats might be better for your situation. You can CLICK HERE to visit that site.
Groovers and edgers are used to make the edges rounded and the lines through the middle of your slab. Those lines are there so that if and when your concrete slab does crack, it will be encouraged to crack in those spots. Then you won’t see the cracks so much because you made pretty lines over the top. I don’t believe there are any specific rules on where to put those lines or how often, so if you want them in certain spots, then you can choose exactly where they go.
A kneel on pad allows you to be on top of the concrete before it has cured and not put huge dents in it. It still leaves a mark on the top, but as long as you are working your way backwards and not kneeling where you have already mag’d, those spots are easily buffed out as you move along.
Make sure to have anything you will be placing in the wet concrete. For example, if we didn’t have our stem walls already poured, with our J bolts in them, then we would be putting J bolts around the edges of our concrete slab so we could hook the green plate to them. You can go back and read about our J bolts and stem wall HERE.
Alright, did I miss anything? Let’s go over the instructions now.
- Order your concrete ahead of time. If you need to know how to figure out how much concrete you need CLICK HERE. If you are going to need a pump truck, schedule that too for the same time.
- Be 100% ready when the concrete truck shows up. You can be charged for making them wait. Check with the company ahead of time what their rules are and how long their “appointment” is with you. Ours was for 3 hours.
- Start in the farthest corner and begin pouring the concrete. If it is too wet or too dry to your liking, just talk to the truck operator and he can adjust it. Pour a section, and use a shovel to move the mud into the corners and hard to reach spots. It’s fine to stop pouring for a little while and work on the first section before moving on. One person will probably need to be in charge of the boom or shoot so he can signal to the driver when to start and stop or when to move it around.
- As you move forward, use the screed to level out the concrete. Standing in the concrete is not a problem. In some cases it may even help you move the mud around where you want it, or squish out any bubbles or weird spots.
- Keep moving one section or area at a time, and screeding as you go. Right now, you just need to get the concrete poured and leveled out. It does not need to be perfectly smooth. If you have extra helpers though, you can get them started on the next steps while you continue to pour new sections.
- Next, use the bull float to smooth out the whole area. Try your best not to step in the mud now because this is the start of the finishing process. If you need to step on it, use the pad.
- Make your edges and lines now using the edger and groover. You can hold a string across to make a perfectly straight line to follow with your groover if you choose. We split our garage into 3 sections both ways, so we put two groove lines across it in one direction and two in the other.
- Use your hand floats (we used mag and steel) to then smooth the top out to look really nice. Depending on how many helpers you have and what size of slab you are pouring, and the weather, and, and, and a whole bunch of other factors, you may need to wait a few minutes for this step. Don’t let it get too dry or you won’t be able to fix the imperfections, but if it’s sopping wet still it will be better to wait until it firms up just a bit. You will be kneeling on your pads for this step and you don’t want to sink in too deep. Be sure to start in the farthest corner and work backwards (just like if you were moping a floor) so that you don’t have to kneel on the spot you already smoothed out. Josh, Matt, and Mikey were all working on this step for a few hours and it was very physical work. If we had a few more guys to devote to it, they wouldn’t have been so wiped out at the end. They got it done, and it looked great, but they did feel a little rushed at the end because it was getting too dry. Not to mention what an arm workout it was! Everyone took the rest of the afternoon off and was sore the next day.
- Add any finishing touches. This should be done simultaneously with the last step. Right after that particular spot is smoothed out, you should be putting in whatever you need. If you need to put in J bolts, do that before it dries much. If you want to make handprints or write names or draw pictures, do that right after it’s smoothed out.
All there is to do now is stay off the concrete while it cures. Depending on weather and a few other factors, this could take anywhere from several hours to a couple days. To be safe, we waited 1 day and then checked it over thoroughly before walking on it.
Then we were able to remove the form boards and get to work on the walls of the garage.
If you hire a concrete sub contractor
Not everyone is going to want to try their hand at concrete work and that’s okay. If you choose to hire a sub contractor for this, here are some of the things you will need to know beforehand:
- Which of the above things you will be in charge of and which the sub contractor will take care of. Maybe you want to do the prep work (dirt and gravel) and he will just handle the concrete.
- All of the systems work that needs to be done ahead of time. The concrete sub contractor is not the one that will handle any plumbing lines or HVAC openings. You need to do that homework as the general contractor and make sure everything is completed before pouring day.
- Which tools you need to supply. I would be very surprised if you need to supply any of the actual concrete tools, but you do need to ask about what water, electrical, or other requirements he may have.
- Who is ordering the gravel and concrete?
- What things need to go into the concrete while it’s wet? Do you need to have the J bolts there or will he do that?
So many of these things can be adjusted to each situation. Maybe you have a connection with someone who works at a concrete supply place and can get it really cheap. Just talk to your concrete guy about what it would cost to have him order the concrete vs what it would cost to go through your guy. Maybe you can save a little money by setting up the forms yourself instead of having him do it.
Just decide what parts you want to handle and what parts you don’t. Make sure to communicate that with your concrete sub contractor so you are both on the same page. I find it’s helpful to ask him to walk you through exactly what will happen on pour day. Then it’s easier for me to pick out which things he might be assuming I have already taken care of (even if I didn’t know I needed to take care of that).
Cost breakdown:
Concrete ……………………………………………………. $1,149.50
Gravel ……………………………………………………….. $383.85
Tools and supplies ………………………………………. $67.80
Labor …………………………………………………………. $680.00
Total ………………………………………………………….. $2,281.15
A couple notes on our cost breakdown …
The concrete and gravel were at full price so that is a good estimate. Josh, Matt, and Mikey already had most of the concrete tools and supplies that we needed so our tools and supplies estimate is VERY low. Our labor cost is for our 3 guys being paid by the hour. If we had a concrete sub contractor come in, it would have been more expensive for labor, so we did save a bit there also. Plus, Farmer and I provided a small amount of labor that helped bring the cost down a tiny bit more.
So between tools and supplies, labor, and me being the general contractor (making all of the arrangements and price comparison for concrete and gravel) we saved right around $1,000 on this particular step.
I would like to start including a product list at the end of some of the steps for you guys so you can see which products, supplies, or companies that we used in each step that we were happy with and would use again. Most of them will just be small things, but at least you can see what we used and how much each item would cost if you plan to buy any of your own supplies. Remember, this is not a complete list of the supplies we used, just the ones we liked enough to recommend.
Product list:
AAA Ready Mix out of Moses Lake, WA – concrete supplier
My favorite floats to use were Marshalltown:
Bull float (note that this one doesn’t include the long handle)
Click on any of the links above to see the product or go to the company webpage to learn more.
If we did it all over again …
I would do it exactly the same way. I thought the guys did a great job and I was happy with the money savings that we ended up with. I feel confident that we could handle a concrete job like that ourselves (with friends to help of course) but it was really nice to have guys who knew what they were doing.
If you have additional concrete questions or feel like something wasn’t properly explained, it’s probably because I already wrote about it in detail in another one of my concrete posts. Here are the other ones to check out before you start your own concrete work:
Step 12: Concrete forms for footings
Step 13: Rebar in your footings
Step 14: Your first inspection and cement prep
Step 15: Pouring cement footings
That should only take you about 10 hours to read all of that … so get to it!
I will let you know when step 24 is finished up.
~Farmer’s Wife
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Megan says
Thank you so much for all of your posts! So SO helpful! I am just in the beginning stages (still trying to figure out my floorplan). But I have create a huge binder with all of your helpful info in an organized way and that is helping me a lot! I also recently purchased the PYH Workbook with all of the checklists! I am wondering how many steps will there be total? And what will step #24 be about? Thank you so much for all of your help!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Megan, I have no idea how many steps there will be haha. I am just writing them in order and giving them a number. I can tell you at least 50, but probably more, because once you get to the finish work there are so many little steps going on in each room and area. Step 24 is the beginning of the wall framing.
Best of luck!
Rachel says
Need the next steps!! 🙂
I’d like to know what all the extra things you offer for purchase are. The video tutorials and elite hire I know, but what is the pyh workbook? Where can I find that? What else am I missing?
Also this is kind of forward but how do I know the products are worth it? Will I really be getting everything I need? I want to make as few mistakes as possible when the time comes for us to do this! (Gotta save first 🙂 )
You’re amazing!
farmerswife@therealfarmhouse.com says
Hey Rachel, I don’t mind forward questions haha. That’s how you save money after all!
So here is what I offer:
Video Tutorials is available all the time.
Elite Hire is only open a few times a year and is currently closed until fall 2018.
Plan Your House the course is usually available all the time but is closed right now while I update it and add in new bonuses. It will reopen the end of August.
PYH workbook is for if you don’t want the entire plan your house course then you can just get all the printables that go along with it.
That is all that I sell right now.
Every one of my products have a money back guarantee so if you purchase them and aren’t happy with them then I will send you a full refund. I don’t want anyone spending their hard earned money on something that doesn’t help them out!
I hope that answers all of your questions.