Concrete floor installation in Key West FL - a flat slab ready for your flooring

A 4-inch concrete slab in Florida usually costs about $8 to $14 per square foot installed, with labor and materials included. That's a statewide figure, not our price, and a Key West floor moves with its size, base work, steel, barrier and access. I measure on site and you get a written scope with the price.

A few random cracks are normal even in a well-built floor, because some cracking should be expected even when the joints are spaced close enough. We cut control joints, grooves that give the slab a chosen place to crack as it shrinks, and we cut them on time, since late joints are how cracks end up where nobody wanted them.

A vapor barrier protects your covering, any coating and the building best when it sits right against the bottom of the slab. One maker's guide notes that a barrier keeps water rising to the top of fresh concrete longer, so crews should check surface moisture before troweling. We settle the barrier and your covering before we pour.

Usually yes, because the city requires a building permit for work over $1,000 in materials and labor or for any structural change. Only all-interior, non-structural work under $1,000 is exempt. The application has to state the full scope and its cost, or it gets sent back, so we write those up first.

Yes, it does. Hot-weather problems mostly come in summer, and a windy, sunny day calls for stricter precautions than a calm, humid one, while low humidity and wind can dry a slab too fast even on a cooler day. We set the pour date with you and tell you what we'll do that day.

Not always, because some places with a Key West mailing address, such as Key Haven, Rockland Key and the south side of Stock Island, sit outside the city's jurisdiction. Those fall under the county, so we check which office covers your address before we start any paperwork.

For exterior work, yes, a Certificate of Appropriateness is part of the building permit application in the Historic District. An inside floor isn't exterior work, but a slab for an addition or a porch can be, which is why we plan for that review before we set a pour date.

It can, if work within one year costs 50 percent or more of your building's market value before the work, because the city counts that as substantial improvement. A substantially improved home in an A or V flood zone must be raised to at least the base flood elevation plus another foot, so plan larger projects with the city early.