Quickcrete

I need to vent. Again. Here's the bottom line: I need a 12X12 concrete slab poured at the back of my garage. It will serve two purposes.

Purpose number A: Wedding Day Dance Floor (you try and rent one - they're expensive as heck!)

Purpose number B: Shed Floor for Mike's future expansion of the garage. (Less than two years and he's already outgrown a two car garge.... incredible, but not unpredictable.)

So, I should start out with the cost of my basement floor: $270. That's just the concrete. How do I know? I paid the ready mix company separately from the laborers. I think I may have told you guys all this already. Now, the basement is around 25X40 - approx.

A few weeks ago Mike and I headed to the DeepHo to buy some Quickcrete and perhaps rent a mixer. I was thinking to myself at that time - it can't be as expensive to do it yourself as it is to have an entire basement floor poured. And I was correct. It's MORE expensive. To make a slab 12'X12'X4 or 5" you need over 100 80lb bags of Quickcrete. Did I mention they're over $3 per bag? In fact, I think they're more than $3.50 per bag. And then you've got to mix the stuff.

I was sooo pissed. Doesn't make any sense to me - doing it yourself is more expensive than having someone else do it. MUCH more expensive. For a couple weeks I've been steaming over it. But the fact is, that's the way things are in the wonderful world of quickcrete.

So today I broke down and called Fucillo - the same ready mix company the poured my basement floor. Unfortunately, the proposition is still expensive. A 12X12X5" pour comes out to a cubic yard value of around 2.5. For delivery, they have a 4 yard minimum. Normally $80 per yard, but for Saturday delivery, they ask another $5 per yard. So in total - 4 yards works out to be $340.

WHICH - if you'll read back a couple of paragraphs - is still a lot more for a little shed than my entire basement floor. I'm sure they discount in bulk and I'm sure my floor dudes got some kind of contractor discount. But COME ON people. It's nuts, isn't it? I even called a couple other companies - they had comparable or more expensive prices and some did not offer saturday delivery.

I think the way to maximize this situation is to pour the entire 4 yards. I think that would be like a 14X14. There are calculators all over the internet you can use if you're interested in finding out for sure for yourself. So Mike has a bigger shed and we have a bigger dance floor. Or Mike has a little porch on his shed. woop-de-doo.

The lesson here, Quickcrete is expensive for medium size projects and completely out of the question for large projects. If you have 2 or more yards to pour - call in a ready mix company.