MDchanic
Well-known member
Hello All,
Here's a long story with a short question for the concrete experts here:
So I've built this 50x72' pole barn (3,600 sqft), which is going to have 2,400' of 5" concrete poured in the near future.
Our site had a bit of a slope to it, I'd say about 4' at the extremes, but it was the flattest area we had.
We went through three different contractors for the grading, over a period of more than a year:
Second Guy did most of the fill work. He used local material (moved the high side to the low side) and used a "Recycled Asphalt Item #4" for the rest ("Item 4" is the local term for compactable crushed stone). He said it was cheap and stable.
Pad was levelled by Second Guy. I wasn't there when he shot the levels at the end (gotta work to pay for the pole barn), but my wife was, and she can't read a ruler. Regardless, after he levelled it, the posts had to be sunk, which involved a lot of excavator work, extraction of car-size rocks, etc., so the pad didn't look too good after that.
When we told Third Guy he was done for now, he said we really needed crushed stone under the slab, and he'd be happy to remove a good amount of the crushed asphalt, replace it with stone, and level it, for a price. He also knew a guy who does really nice concrete work, had him come by to look, and said he'd include changing the fill in that guy's price.
I made a serious search for local concrete guys with good reputations, and could only find one guy who seemed to be any good, and he came by, checked it out and provided a real estimate at a fair price (as confirmed by concrete guys my Ol' Man knows in a different area). He also said the current fill was fine, and he could re-level and compact it without having to replace it.
When Third Guy's concrete guy finally came through at the last minute with an estimate (which revealed the concrete guy's full name, which, when searched, revealed no references to concrete whatsoever, but instead an extensive criminal history, complete with mugshots in the local paper, for things including wifebeating and passing bad checks), Third Guy stopped by to see how we were doing, and warned us again about letting the other guy pour the concrete without changing the fill.
tl;dr:
So, my question is: Can we leave the crushed asphalt fill we have, or would it be a good idea to scrape it out and replace it with crushed stone?
The underlying ground is extremely rocky glacial glacial till on top of solid bluestone ledge, which is quite stable.
This would be an easier question for me if the guy recommending different stone weren't the disreputable guy and the guy saying it's okay to leave it weren't the reputable guy.
If you've read through this, thanks for the effort, whether you've got any advice to give or not!
- Eric
Here's a long story with a short question for the concrete experts here:
So I've built this 50x72' pole barn (3,600 sqft), which is going to have 2,400' of 5" concrete poured in the near future.
Our site had a bit of a slope to it, I'd say about 4' at the extremes, but it was the flattest area we had.
We went through three different contractors for the grading, over a period of more than a year:
- First Guy disappeared - seemed like he got overwhelmed,
- Second Guy seemed to know what he was doing, but actually had no idea, was getting advice from friends, would freeze up when there was nobody available to call, finally walked off the job claiming - I kid you not - that a FaceBook post my wife made about "Men" (you know the kind) was insulting,
- Third Guy had subcontracted all of the work that the Second Guy had done right, did the job well, couldn't ever manage to provide a written estimate, then started drifting into "needing" more and more money, so we told him the job was done.
Second Guy did most of the fill work. He used local material (moved the high side to the low side) and used a "Recycled Asphalt Item #4" for the rest ("Item 4" is the local term for compactable crushed stone). He said it was cheap and stable.
Pad was levelled by Second Guy. I wasn't there when he shot the levels at the end (gotta work to pay for the pole barn), but my wife was, and she can't read a ruler. Regardless, after he levelled it, the posts had to be sunk, which involved a lot of excavator work, extraction of car-size rocks, etc., so the pad didn't look too good after that.
When we told Third Guy he was done for now, he said we really needed crushed stone under the slab, and he'd be happy to remove a good amount of the crushed asphalt, replace it with stone, and level it, for a price. He also knew a guy who does really nice concrete work, had him come by to look, and said he'd include changing the fill in that guy's price.
I made a serious search for local concrete guys with good reputations, and could only find one guy who seemed to be any good, and he came by, checked it out and provided a real estimate at a fair price (as confirmed by concrete guys my Ol' Man knows in a different area). He also said the current fill was fine, and he could re-level and compact it without having to replace it.
When Third Guy's concrete guy finally came through at the last minute with an estimate (which revealed the concrete guy's full name, which, when searched, revealed no references to concrete whatsoever, but instead an extensive criminal history, complete with mugshots in the local paper, for things including wifebeating and passing bad checks), Third Guy stopped by to see how we were doing, and warned us again about letting the other guy pour the concrete without changing the fill.
tl;dr:
So, my question is: Can we leave the crushed asphalt fill we have, or would it be a good idea to scrape it out and replace it with crushed stone?
The underlying ground is extremely rocky glacial glacial till on top of solid bluestone ledge, which is quite stable.
This would be an easier question for me if the guy recommending different stone weren't the disreputable guy and the guy saying it's okay to leave it weren't the reputable guy.
If you've read through this, thanks for the effort, whether you've got any advice to give or not!
- Eric
