The slab line is a held date, not a markup

The three choices on the form are a scheduling question

The quote form asks about your slab in three ways, and they are not really about concrete. They are about who owns the calendar between now and the day a crew shows up with steel.

• Yes, poured. There is concrete on the ground today. We need its dimensions and we need to see it before we cut anything.
• Planned. You have a pourer lined up. Nothing concrete appears on your quote, and we work to your date.
• No, need help. We put it on the quote and book it.

Why concrete lands on a steel quote at all

A steel building is anchored to its slab, and the anchor layout is drawn off the same drawing the frame is cut from. That layout has to be in the pourer's hands before the pour, not after it. Concrete that is square, level and the right size is not a favour to the building. It is the first course of it.

Which is why the slab is not a line we add to grow the number. It is the line that decides whether the erection date is real. A slab poured to the wrong dimension is discovered on the morning a crew is standing on it.

At 31 ft wide and up, the slab is not optional

One hard rule sits above all of this: any unit 31 ft wide or wider has to be installed on concrete. Not recommended on concrete — installed on it. Below that width a ground or gravel setup is a real choice; at 31 ft it stops being one, and it is written into the sales agreement rather than left to the crew on the day.

Worth knowing early, because it is usually discovered by somebody who has already decided on a 40 ft width and budgeted for dirt.

Keep your pourer. This is what changes

Nothing about the price of the building. Pick Planned and the concrete simply is not on the quote.

What changes is who holds the seam. When we book it, we hold the date and the two schedules move together. When you book it, that seam is yours: if the pour slips two weeks, the erection date moves and we are finding out from you. Plenty of customers own that comfortably, especially the ones who already have a slab guy they trust. It is worth deciding on purpose rather than by default.

What we need either way

• Finished slab dimensions, not the building dimensions, if it is already down.
• Who is pouring, and roughly when.
• Whether the site has been cut and levelled, or is still pasture.

Send those with your dimensions and the quote comes back with the slab priced or absent, rather than with a question attached.

The part nobody can answer from a desk

Site prep is the one number on a building quote that a photograph cannot settle. Fall across the pad, how much dirt has to move, whether a truck can reach it in the wet — those change the concrete figure more than the square footage does. If your site is not already flat, expect the slab line to be a range until somebody has stood on it.