How this page is put together
The questions below are grouped the way they come up: cost, the pump, scheduling, what goes under the slab, and what happens after the pour.
If you want a number before you call anybody, the cost estimator on our homepage takes your dimensions and gives you a ballpark. If you want a real number, we come out, measure it, and hand you a written page. Both cost you nothing.
Cost questions
Concrete is priced by the square foot installed. Where a job lands in its range depends on the pour type, the thickness, the reinforcement, the site prep and the finish. Flat, open and easy to reach lands at the low end. A tear out with hauling, a slope that needs fill and compaction, or a stamped and colored finish lands at the high end.
- Driveways: $8 to $12 per square foot installed.
- Patios and walkways: $9 to $14.
- Garage or shop slab at 5 inches: $8 to $12.
- Sidewalks: $10 to $15.
- Foundations at 8 inches: $14 to $22.
- Stamped or decorative finishes: $14 to $22.
- Rebar or wire mesh adds $0.75 to $1.25 per square foot.
- Tear out and haul off of old concrete adds $2 to $3.
How the yardage works
Those bands are ballparks, not quotes. To get the concrete order we take the volume in cubic feet, divide by 27 for cubic yards, then add 10 percent for waste.
Ready mix is ordered in 10 cubic yard loads, so a job that pencils out to nine yards still brings a full load. The number that counts is the one on your free written estimate, after we have seen the access, the subgrade and where the water goes.
Questions about the pump
We own a trailer mounted line pump. It tows in behind a truck, sets up on the ground, and pushes concrete through 2.5 inch and 3 inch hose that our operator and hose guy walk to the forms. That is how concrete gets around the side of a house, over a fence, or into a backyard you cannot back a loaded truck into.
Most concrete crews do not own one. They call somebody else, take the slot they are given, and hope the pump and the ready mix land on the same morning. Ours sits on our own trailer, so when weather pushes a pour, the pump moves when we move.
Scheduling and weather questions
The office runs Monday through Friday, 7:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon. Pour days start early, because concrete and hot afternoons do not get along.
Weather sets the calendar more than anything else does. Rain ruins a fresh finish, and a freeze on a green slab does damage nobody can sand out later, so we would rather call and move a day than pour into a storm. Ready mix gets booked ahead too, so the more notice you give us, the better the day we can get you.
What goes under the concrete
Most concrete that fails did not fail because of the concrete. It failed because of what was underneath it. Soft or organic soil, red clay holding water, or a base that was never properly compacted will move, and the slab sitting on it moves right along.
That is why these answers keep coming back to four things: base, thickness, reinforcement and drainage. Those four are where a cheap bid and a real bid actually differ, and they are what to compare when you have two written pages in front of you.
If your question is not on this page
Ask it. Call 276-733-3750 during the week or email [email protected], and we will answer straight, including the times when the honest answer is that your job is not one for us.
We are Bowman-Griffin Concrete Pumping, LLC, at 5055 Carrollton Pike in Woodlawn, Carroll County, about eight miles from Hillsville. We work within roughly a one to one and a half hour drive of Hillsville, out to the Roanoke Valley and across the North Carolina line into Mount Airy and Surry County.