Building a new home or addition on ground that swells and shrinks? We pour the slab to your soils report and engineer's design.
Slab foundation building in Lake Charles means pouring the concrete slab a new home or addition sits on, with deeper footings around the edge and under the inside walls and steel through the slab, built to a design that holds up on ground that shrinks and swells.
You've probably got a lot, a set of plans and a lot of questions about what goes underneath. The price mostly turns on the size and shape of the footprint, the slab type your engineer calls for, how much steel and concrete footings the design needs, and how much fill it takes to bring the floor up to height. The schedule turns on getting the soils report, the design and the city's plan review done before anyone digs, and after that on rain and the cure. I'll come out, measure and write up what's included, so you have your own figure before you decide.
I come out to look at your lot, measure and write the estimate myself, so the person pricing the job is the one answering your questions. Our own crew does the work, and I'm on site while it's going on.
I learned concrete pouring slabs and driveways in new subdivisions, back when the lots were bare dirt and nobody had moved in yet. In 2021 I started this business to do that work for homes people already live in, and we're five years in.
We're licensed and fully insured, which matters on work that carries the weight of a whole house for as long as it stands. The estimate tells you plainly what's included and what isn't. Your satisfaction, guaranteed.
I'd rather sort out where the trucks come in, where you'll park and who hauls off the dirt we dig out before work starts than leave you to find out later. To get started, call (337) 549-5674 or use the form on this page.
Call (337) 549-5674 or send the form with the property address, and have your plans or soils report handy if you've got them. We reply within one business day, then I come out, look, measure and write up what's included before you decide. The estimate is free and there's no obligation to book.
Inside the City of Lake Charles, a new home needs a building permit, and the city's Permit Center issues it only after it reviews and approves a complete digital set of plans. Outside city limits a different office may cover your address, so we check with the city or parish office that covers it before work starts, and when a permit's needed, we handle the paperwork or walk you through it.
The ground here is the bigger story. An older parish soil survey rates one of the soils mapped here as poorly suited to development because it stays wet and shrinks and swells a lot, and says foundations on it need drainage and a design that makes up for that movement. Flooding matters too, since the parish reports 46% of its land sits in a high-risk flood hazard area. FEMA's 2010 coastal building guide requires deeply embedded pile or column foundations in V Zones and recommends them over slabs in A Zones, because it calls slabs more prone to scour, where moving water washes soil out from underneath, so if your lot is in one of those zones, raise it with your designer before anyone prices a slab. We see the same wet, shifting ground on jobs in Sulphur and Moss Bluff, and we work across Southwest Louisiana and into Orange, TX, so if your city isn't listed, ask us.
The price depends on your house and your lot, so I give it as a written figure after I've measured on site. The big drivers are the size and shape of the footprint, the slab type your engineer calls for, how much steel and footing the design needs and how much fill it takes to reach the city's floor height. Lots that need extra ground work or are hard to get trucks into usually cost more.
Start with the soil and the design, before anyone talks about concrete. Calcasieu Parish strongly recommends a geotechnical engineer to test the soil and a structural engineer or architect to design the foundation, because south Louisiana soils can cause settlement. The city's plan set then shows the footing depth and width, the steel, vapor barrier and fill, a grading plan for where rainwater runs, and the name and phone number of whoever is responsible for the design.
A post-tensioned slab is often the one worth asking about, though your designer makes the call from your soils report. It has steel cables tightened after the pour, and the Post-Tensioning Institute, a trade group, calls it a cost-efficient, high-performance choice for homes on shrink-swell soil because that squeeze helps the slab resist the ground moving. Ask how it compares with a regular rebar slab, and on less expansive ground, whether an even-thickness version without stiffening ribs fits, since the group says it goes in quickly and lower labor and equipment costs offset the extra concrete.
In the City of Lake Charles, the floor of a new enclosed home has to sit one foot above the highest of four set measurements, one of them being the centerline of the nearest street. Mechanical equipment has to meet that height too, and the city lists a Freeboard Elevation Packet as required for all new construction. Your designer puts the height on the plans, and we build the slab to it.
Yes. The state licensing board says a home project of $50,000 or more, or one that needs any structural work, has to be bid and built by a licensed Residential Building Contractor, and a foundation is structural work. The city's Permit Center, which issues the permit, also licenses building contractors, so it's fair to ask whoever you hire about both.
One cost guide says a new slab should be walkable within 48 hours. The same guide suggests waiting a week before putting heavier loads on it, and says concrete takes a month to fully cure, which is the stretch where it keeps gaining strength. I'll go over what that wait means for your schedule when I write the estimate.
