How much does a concrete slab cost in Arlington, TX?

A slab that only carries foot traffic, storage and a lawn mower can be 4 inches, and that is the $8 to $14 per square foot band. A shop floor, a detached garage or anything that a vehicle, a lift or a loaded trailer will sit on wants 5 to 6 inches. Five inches adds about 8 percent to the per-foot band and six adds about 18 percent, because every extra inch is more mix, more steel and more excavation.

In dollars that is smaller than people expect. On a 20 by 20 pad, 400 square feet, broom finish at 4 inches is roughly $3,200 to $5,600; the same pad at 5 inches is about $3,450 to $6,050 and at 6 inches about $3,800 to $6,600. Six hundred more dollars at the low end to go from a slab that cracks under a truck to one that does not is the easiest decision on this page.

Reinforcement is the other lever. A tied rebar grid on chairs adds $0.60 to $1.10 per square foot — $240 to $440 on that 400-foot pad. Rebar does not stop concrete from cracking; it holds the crack tight so the two sides stay level, which on North Texas clay is exactly the failure you are buying insurance against. The slab page covers grid spacing, chairs and turn-down edges in full.

A 12 by 16 shed pad is 192 square feet and about 2.6 cubic yards with waste. The per-foot math gives roughly $1,536 to $2,688, which sits on our $1,800 job minimum, so call it $1,800 to $2,700. It is also a short load, and most DFW ready-mix plants add a small-batch fee under about 4 cubic yards.

A 20 by 20 detached garage or workshop slab at 6 inches is 400 square feet and about 8.1 cubic yards — one truck. Broom finish runs about $3,800 to $6,600. Add a smooth trowel finish and a rebar grid, which is what a shop floor usually wants, and it is about $4,250 to $7,300.

A 24 by 30 shop slab at 6 inches with a rebar grid is 720 square feet, about 14.7 cubic yards, which is two ready-mix loads: roughly $7,250 to $12,700. A 30 by 40 building slab at 6 inches with a smooth finish and rebar is 1,200 square feet and about 24.4 yards across three loads, running roughly $12,750 to $21,850. If an old slab has to come out first, add $2.50 to $4.50 per square foot on top of any of those.

The per-foot numbers above are flatwork bands. A slab that carries a building needs more than flatwork, and the extra parts get priced as their own lines rather than hidden in a per-foot rate: a monolithic turn-down edge where the perimeter thickens to 12 inches or more with steel in the bottom of the beam, thickened sections under post lines and heavy equipment, a polyethylene vapor barrier under anything enclosed, and cast-in anchor bolts set to the building’s bolt pattern.

Engineering is its own line too. Many metal-building suppliers ship engineered foundation drawings with the kit; if yours does, we pour to those and there is nothing to add. If your project needs a sealed foundation design and nobody has provided one, that is a cost between you and an engineer, not something we can quote for you. Whether your build needs one is a question for your city — call them before you order the building, because the foundation is the first thing an inspector looks at and the hardest thing to change. Our permit page walks through what that process looks like in Arlington.

Access can also sit outside the band. If a ready-mix truck cannot reach the forms, the concrete gets wheeled or pumped, and on a slab of any size that is real money. We price it after walking the site instead of finding it on pour day.

The subgrade is where a low bid saves its money, and it is the part you cannot inspect once the concrete is down. Arlington sits on expansive clay that swells when it rains and shrinks when it dries. A slab poured on raked dirt or loose fill rides that cycle until it cracks. We strip topsoil and organics, grade to a consistent depth and compact a base — usually about 4 inches of crushed stone — so the slab bears evenly instead of bridging soft spots.

Steel placement is the second quiet cost. Welded wire mesh does its job only if it is lifted into the middle of the slab; mesh dragged along on the dirt is a line item that does nothing. Bar tied and held on chairs can be seen at the pre-pour walk, which is the point.

Joints are the third. A 4-inch slab is jointed every 8 to 10 feet and a 6-inch slab every 12 to 15, cut within the first day and about a quarter of the slab depth. Isolation joints separate the slab from posts, walls and other concrete. Skipping or widening joints saves an hour on pour day and buys random cracks by the second summer.

Run the free calculator with your dimensions, thickness and finish, and tick rebar and tear-out. It returns the installed price band, the cubic yards, the number of ready-mix trucks, the joint spacing and the cure dates. It uses the same math as the numbers on this page.

Then tell us what is going on the slab. That single answer sets the thickness, the steel, the edge detail and whether there is a vapor barrier, and those decide the price far more than the square footage does. If you have a foundation drawing or an anchor layout from a building supplier, send it — we pour to the spec.

Plan the build around the cure, not the other way round. You can walk a slab the next day. Cars and pickups wait 7 days on 4 or 5 inches and 10 days on 6. Heavy equipment and loaded trailers wait 14 days on 4 or 5 inches and 28 days on 6, which is when concrete reaches its design strength; the curing time page has the whole schedule. Costs for other pours are on the driveway cost and patio cost pages.