One of the concrete slabs (7′ x 8′ x 3″) by my driveway was cracked and sunken. The previous owner created the slab and didn’t include rebar. I paid someone $75 to break the slab into small chucks.
He used my jackhammer to break the slab, which you can buy on Amazon for $140.
I then rented a box truck from Home Depot for $29 / 75 minutes and took the concrete to GreenWaste. The cost to dump the concrete was $54.
Here’s how the space looked after removing the concrete. I would need about 0.5 cubic yards of concrete.
If I wanted to pay a concrete supplier like EZ-MIX CONCRETE to deliver pre-mixed concrete by truck, it would have cost me about $600 because they charge a minimum of 2 cubic yards.
I posted an RFQ on Yelp and Thumbtack and got the following quotes for both labor and materials:
- Contractor 1: $1200
- Contractor 2: $950
- Contractor 3: $800
Contractor 3 happened to live 2 blocks from me. I chose him because he showed me the sample concrete work he had done, which looked very good, and his quote was the most reasonable. He went to Home Depot to buy rebar and about 35 bags of 60 lb concrete.
According to Home Depot, the concrete cost would be about $160 + tax, which includes 10% extra concrete.
There were 3 workers who came at 7 AM to start the project. First, they cut the rebar using an angle grinder and laid it down.
They then mixed the concrete with water in a wheelbarrow by hand using small shovels.
They should have just used an electric mixer to make mixing easy.
They then used a rake and a long bar to push and even out the wet concrete.
They then used a rough float to even out the surface.
They then used a large float to smoothen the surface.
and an edger to create a beveled edge.
This is how the surface looked when the concrete was still wet.
After waiting 1 to 1.5 hours, they came back and continued to smooth the surface, first using a rough trowel
and then using a finishing trowel.
Then, they came back about 30 minutes later to create a brushed texture for traction using a concrete broom.
As you can see, the surface came out very nice.
