Three pours that should not share one sentence

Concrete on these jobs is a house slab, a footing, or flatwork, and the work under each one is different. A house slab is a floor with reinforcement, a vapor retarder, and termite protection. A footing carries a wall or a post. Flatwork is a driveway, walk, or pad that moves people and rain. It is not the living-room floor. The scope names the pour. Mixing the three up is how the wrong items get left out of the ground.

Under a house slab in this climate

The slab sits on fill that has been compacted, not on sand raked flat the morning the truck is due. Soft spots get corrected before concrete is asked to bridge them. Forms set the elevation, including the height that has to meet an existing floor when the pour is an addition. Reinforcement is whatever the plans show, mesh or bars or both, held up in the concrete instead of lying in the dirt where it strengthens nothing. Sleeves and block-outs for plumbing are in place before the pour. Saw-cutting them afterward is a different kind of damage.

Anchor bolts and straps called out for the walls are set while the concrete can still take them, or drilled later only if the plan allows that sequence. The line of the slab is the line framing has to live with. A slab that is high at one door and low at the next becomes a framing complaint that started in the forms. We check that line against the house you already have, not against a hopeful guess from the street.

The vapor retarder, in plain language

A vapor retarder is a continuous sheet under the slab, usually polyethylene, lapped so ground moisture has a harder time driving up through the concrete. In this humidity that shows up as a damp floor, adhesive that lets go, and a smell paint will not cancel. The sheet turns up at the edges. Penetrations get sealed. A torn offcut is not a substitute. The sheet belongs under a slab inside the building. A driveway does not borrow that detail, and it is not a basement waterproofing system. These houses almost never have a basement.

Termite protection without a brand name

Subterranean termites are a normal condition of Florida ground, including Marion County. A new house slab gets termite protection. The method is chosen for the project and accepted on the permit. It may be a soil treatment by a licensed pest-control company, a physical barrier, treated framing at the points the design uses, or a combination of those. We do not name a chemical product as the one required choice, and the concrete crew does not apply a restricted pesticide as a side task. Whatever method is used has to be documented the way the building department expects, before concrete hides the work.

If the method is a soil treatment, it is placed after the fill and forms are ready and before the pour, by the pest company, not by the finishers. Disturb that soil and the record has to be fixed before concrete covers it. We do not rake a treatment and trust yesterday’s paper.

Footings, and ground we will not diagnose

A footing spreads the load of a wall or a column into soil that can hold it. On an addition it has to meet the existing slab or foundation with the dowels or keys the plans show, not as two pours that merely touch. The bottom of the excavation should be firm. Depth and steel come from the design and from the code adopted for that permit, not from a story about how deep someone dug in another county. Loose spoil left in the trench is not bearing.

Parts of Marion County sit on karst: limestone that water can dissolve into soft zones and, in places, cavities. That is a reason to stop when the digging looks wrong. It is not a reason for us to announce a sinkhole from the edge of a trench. Suspected settlement belongs with an engineer before any thickening of a footing is sold as a cure. We place the concrete the design describes. We do not practice geology. The rule is written on the structural repairs page, and it starts with the design professional, not the ready-mix ticket.

Flatwork, slope, and the truck

Driveways, walks, and equipment pads need a base that will not pump mud through the slab, a thickness suited to the load, and a slope that carries water away from the block. A pad that ponds against the wall will find the slab edge. Joints are tooled or cut so the concrete can crack on a line we chose. A stamped or colored finish can be a selection inside a larger flatwork job. It is not its own studio, and it does not replace slope or a decent base. Paint-on color later is a different trade entirely.

• Fill compacted before forms are trusted, especially where an addition meets old soil.
• A vapor retarder that is continuous under a house slab, not a few loose strips.
• Termite protection documented, with no chemical named as the only legal product.
• Reinforcement held in the concrete, chairs and all, instead of walked into the dirt.
• Footing bottoms that are firm, with ties to existing concrete where the plan shows them.
• Flatwork sloped away from the house, and joints placed on purpose.

The truck has to reach the forms, and washout has to land where it is allowed. If the lot needs a pump, that belongs in the scope before pour day. Permits follow the parcel. An Ocala address can still be unincorporated Marion County, a different department than a city lot. That path is on the building permits page. A garage floor usually lives with garage additions. Inside a larger contract, this pour is a date the rest of the construction services wait on. As its own scope, it still needs a clear edge and the items that kind of concrete requires. We will not price a structural footing from a napkin.