Concrete flatwork in Ellensburg and Kittitas County

Flatwork is the category that hides the widest range of jobs. A patio and a shop floor and the approach slabs under a truck scale are all flatwork, and almost nothing about them is the same except that they end up flat.

We have poured all three. The scale job in the gallery below is a good example of what we mean by sizing the work to the load: the deck sits between two concrete approaches that take a loaded truck braking on them, backfilled with cobble so the ground underneath drains instead of pumping.

The standard sequence is unglamorous and it is the whole job. Strip organics, cut to grade, build and compact the base rock, set the forms and the screeds, vapor barrier under anything heated, mesh or bar on chairs rather than pulled up by hand mid-pour, then place, screed, float and finish. Control joints go in at a spacing that matches the thickness, because concrete is going to crack and the only question is whether it cracks where you put the joint.

Kittitas winters are hard on exterior flatwork. Freeze and thaw, de-icer off the road, and wind that dries a slab faster than you want. We mix and cure for that, and we slope everything away from the building rather than toward the door.