Concrete Pads and Small Concrete Jobs in Logan, Utah and Cache Valley

This pad sits in a backyard next to a white shed with black trim and a vinyl fence. It started with lumber forms and string lines staked out over a gravel base. Seth drove steel stakes to hold each form board in line, and the finished forms ran around the leveled base before any concrete came. Forms have to be braced well enough that the weight of wet concrete can't push them out of line, so the stakes matter as much as the boards.

Then came the pour. While the slab was still wet, Seth finished its edges and tooled control joints across it, and a concrete float and a steel finishing trowel left the surface smooth. The last photo shows the new pad alongside the shed with the lumber forms still in place.

Concrete shrinks as it sets and dries, and it is weak when it gets pulled apart, so some cracking is normal. Control joints are planned cracks: grooves that give the slab a straight line to crack along. The industry guide on joints spaces them at no more than 24 to 36 times the slab's thickness, about 10 feet on a 4-inch slab, and no more than 15 feet apart.

The same guide wants each panel square or close to it, never more than one and a half times as long as it is wide, and each groove at least a quarter of the slab's depth and no less than an inch. Tooled joints are run early in the finishing and run again later so the groove stays open. It also notes that wire mesh will not stop cracking, though it can keep cracks from opening wide.

Logan's building department lists a frost depth of 30 inches for homes and 36 for commercial work, and Cache County lists 30 inches below grade. Under the residential code Utah uses, exterior footings go at least 12 inches below undisturbed ground, and permanent supports must be protected from frost, most often by going below the frost line. Footings may not rest on frozen soil. Small freestanding accessory structures have some exceptions, so the structure and your city set the exact depth.

Footings come up most with a pergola or patio cover. On one louvered pergola we pulled up pavers where a post would stand, dug the footing hole, and set a wood form and string lines over it, with a level checking the post base for plumb. On a cedar privacy fence we set the posts in concrete before the boards went on. Before any hole is dug, Blue Stakes of Utah asks for notice through 811 at least three business days ahead, and the service is free.