CONCRETE FLATWORK · CONCRETE AND MASONRY · FIXED BY STEP 08

Fifteen trades wreck the floor and one sub pays for it

Every contractor on the job used your finished slab as a work platform and a staging yard for a year and a half, and the closeout punch list comes to you.

WHY IT'S A CONCRETE FLATWORK PROBLEM

No other trade's finished product gets walked on, driven over, drilled through, scaffolded on, and stained by fifteen following contractors for eighteen months and then graded on a punch list. The last trade to damage the floor is never the one billed for it. The GC holds your retention as the enforcement mechanism, so the argument starts after your leverage is already gone.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Closeout backcharges of $5,000 to $25,000 hit months after the job was closed in your books, reversing profit you already recognized on work you considered finished. Without dated photo documentation at slab turnover, you don't have a defense to offer.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

14%

CFOS target 13% for concrete flatwork.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

22%

CFOS target 24.5% for concrete flatwork.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

CFOS target 11.5% for concrete flatwork.

Your slab is the only deliverable on the site that every other contractor works on top of for the rest of the build. Steel erection tracks it, masons mix on it, plumbers core drill it, anchors get shot into it, welding happens beside it, and drywall dumps mud across it. Forklift traffic spalls the joints, and the edges at construction joints take the worst of it. At closeout the GC defaults to a backcharge against the concrete sub rather than doing the forensic work of assigning each mark to the trade that made it, because your scope is the visible surface everyone is looking at.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Photograph the entire slab the day you turn it over, dated and organized by grid line, and email the set to the GC stating the surface is being accepted as shown.

STEP 02

Send written notice the same day you see a trade cutting, shooting anchors, mixing, or staging on the finished floor, and identify the trade and the date in it, so the record exists before closeout.

STEP 03

Keep the job open in your books until retention is collected, and code any backcharge back to the original job number so reported profit matches the money you keep.

THE FIX

Step 08: Standards and accountability

Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work.

CFOS-08 · CHAPTER 8

Five hours a month, spent projecting the work

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Concrete flatwork by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

PMs aren't accountable for margin

Your PMs are measured on schedule and on the client being happy. No role in the company is measured on the number at the bottom.

SAME TRADE

What else costs concrete flatwork contractors money

CONCRETE FLATWORK · CFOS-04

Your ready-mix quote expires. Your subcontract doesn't.

You priced the yard in March off a quote sheet and bought it in November off a new one, and the number you signed with the GC never moved an inch.

CONCRETE FLATWORK · CFOS-01

The 63 yards disappear between square feet and cubic yards

The slab came out at the thickness the drawings called for, you never got a change order, and you still bought and placed yards that weren't in the bid.

CONCRETE FLATWORK · CFOS-06

The long lead item in flatwork is a truck slot

You can't buy concrete ahead of the job or ahead of a price increase. You buy a place in the plant's Tuesday morning schedule, and the plant decides whether you keep it.

CONCRETE FLATWORK · CFOS-07

One pour day outspends a month of payroll

Tuesday morning you spend sixty grand before lunch, you bill it on the 25th, and the money reaches your account sometime in October if the GC gets paid.

CONCRETE FLATWORK · CFOS-02

You bid one mobilization and drove out five times

The building slab made money and the sidewalks, ramps, and dumpster pad at the end took it back, eighteen months after you priced them.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Four mobilizations, one mob line item

You clear and grub in month one, come back for wet utilities, come back again for paving subgrade at closeout, and the contract still has one mobilization line.

CONCRETE

Six Trips Back for Pads and Sidewalks, One Unit Price

You were first on the site and you're still coming back for stairs, pads, curbs, and exterior flatwork, all priced inside a per-yard number that assumed you never left.

DRYWALL

You Go Back Six Times And No Ticket Gets Signed

You hung the corridor in March and you're still sending a guy back in June, one hole at a time, on somebody else's dime.

QUESTIONS

What concrete flatwork owners ask

GC backcharging me for slab damage other trades caused?

Every contractor on the job used your finished slab as a work platform and a staging yard for a year and a half, and the closeout punch list comes to you.

What does it cost?

What do I do first?

Photograph the entire slab the day you turn it over, dated and organized by grid line, and email the set to the GC stating the surface is being accepted as shown.

What are concrete flatwork contractors supposed to be making?

Concrete flatwork runs 22% gross margin, 14% overhead and 8% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M. The all-trade average is 7%, so this trade is 1 point above it. The CFOS target is 11.5%.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 08, standards and accountability. Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work. It comes from chapter 8 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for concrete flatwork contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What a fractional CFO does for concrete flatwork contractors

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.