What is an average cost to float an entire slab of 1,400 sq. feet?? ( brand new home) We live in San Diego, Ca.

We were quoted no more than $2,000.

Dana:

It depends on the condition of the slab. Some floor prep jobs may only require a few hours while others can literaly take days. I can't say there is an average cost because each job is always different.

Case in point:

Tract housing. All the homes are the same floor plan, with the same flooring.

Two homes side by side. Reversed plan / flopped plan.


House "A" takes a good day of prep, and about 6 bags of portland patching mud, to flatten the substrate.

House "B" What were they drinking when they poured this slab!!! This home takes 4 days of nonstop prep. You have 28 bags of mud and there are places that still are not perfect and never will be.


What would happen if both jobs were bid the same?
If a contractor is loosing money, is he more prone to cut corners, to cut his monetary loss on a severely underbid job?

Thanks Guys.

It's a big mess right now.

Floorguy, looks like House B.

Apparantly the slab was poured badly and the whole floor is wavy. This is approximately 1,400 sq. feet. The builder is aware and has agreed that it was done poorly and has had their guys come in this week 3 times to sand down the areas, but there are tons of low areas now. Our flooring guys( tile installer) has been there doing work and marking all areas plus directing them to what should be done.

They said there were some areas that were 1 inch over the builders standard specifications.

Baically my flooring comapny told me that it's one of the worse floors they have ever seen and the builder is in agreement that it is a bad floor. My flooring guys told me the builder should be paying for at least half if not all of the floating work. I was pretty irate to learn all of this, and my husband kindof knew what was going on but he is a very laid back & relaxed person. I am the asertive one, so I called the builder ( customer service and superintendant) early evening and told them it was unnaccpetable and they need to work something out with us or pay half the cost. They agreed to pay $1,000 or half for our guys to float the floor.

Our flooring company said that more than likely they don't have the same guy pouring the concrete because they feel like it has happened before and probably had problems with him.


$2,000 sounded really high to me and that's why I wanted to check with you guys. This was an expense we didn't plan for, so now we have to come up with the money. So stressful. But at least the builder is paying 1/2.

The flooring company says they can get done in 2 days with 4 guys.

Forgot to add that the tile installer is the guy who floats the floors for the flooring company. So he works with the hardwood installer since they are contracted through the flooring company. I guess the hardwood guys are going out today to pull the baseboards and the tile installer is starting to float the slab.

He did say that he needs approx. 25 bags to do the work.

Sounds like a big mess. I'm not sure if I would have agreed to having the builder only pay half. IMO, since the slab is so off, he should pay the entire cost. 25 bags of mix for 1400 feet? Man, that's a lot of filling, especially considering they ground down high places as well. But if your prep cost is limited to $1,000.00, which is still a good chunk of change, I guess that's not too, too bad. Things could always be worse.