I was ordering concrete for a small strip mall pad in Omaha and kept having leftover yards after every pour.

My foreman finally pointed out that for years, I'd been adding 10% for waste on the total volume, but I was forgetting to account for the subgrade compaction first. I've been over-ordering by a whole truckload on some jobs, so how do you all figure your waste factor on slabs?

3 comments

3 Comments

noah_davis2mo ago

My buddy did the same thing and wasted a ton of money on a warehouse slab.

owens.nancy1mo ago

I mean, "wasted a ton of money" sounds harsh, but is it really that big of a deal? If your buddy poured a slab and it was a few feet off, you can usually work around it or maybe just frame the building to fit. I've seen people stress over an inch or two on concrete, then end up with a perfectly fine warehouse anyway. Unless he poured it in the wrong spot entirely, it's probably more annoying than catastrophic.

cora1772mo ago

Man, that's a tough lesson to learn. Been there with the math mix-ups on site. It's crazy how one little step can throw everything off.