What do I need to have ready before the concrete truck arrives?

Clear truck access to the pour site (12+ feet wide, firm surface, real turnaround), pour area cleared of vehicles and equipment, utilities located through Alberta One-Call, layout marked and confirmed, base gravel placed and compacted, forms and rebar in position, water and power available on site, and weather rechecked. Anyone available at the site to make small decisions during the pour saves time too.

How much room does a concrete truck need on a farm?

Minimum 12 feet of clear width on the approach, more on curves. About 12–14 feet of overhead clearance for branches. Real turnaround space at the site — concrete trucks don't do multi-point turns. The truck weighs about 25 tonnes empty and 40 tonnes loaded, so the approach has to be firm enough to hold that load without sinking. If a loaded pickup leaves ruts, a concrete truck will bury itself.

Do I need to call for utility locates before excavating for a farm slab?

Yes. Call Alberta One-Call at 1-800-242-3447 or submit online at utilitysafety.ca. It's free and it's not optional. On top of that, tell your contractor about any private underground services — power runs to shops or pumps, waterlines to yard hydrants, septic or aeration lines, drainage tile — that One-Call won't have on file. Anything buried on your property that you know about, mark it.

How long do I need to stay off a new concrete slab?

No foot traffic for at least 24 hours, ideally 48. No vehicles for a week. No heavy loads until day 28 when the concrete reaches design strength. Fresh concrete looks solid within hours but is nowhere near its final strength. Driving a tractor on 5-day-old concrete leaves cracks the slab never recovers from.

What happens if the weather turns bad on pour day?

Depends on how bad. Light rain overnight after the finish is set is usually okay. A hard rain in the first 12 hours after finishing wipes out the surface — that's a reason to reschedule if the forecast looks certain. Overnight lows below 5°C without protection planned is another reschedule trigger. Very hot windy days are workable but need extra wet-cure supplies. We watch the 5-day forecast the week of the pour and make the call together.

How to Prep Your Farm Site Before the Concrete Truck Arrives

Short answer: a farm concrete pour goes smooth when the site is ready the day before, not the morning of. That means clear truck access, marked layout, known utility locations, working drainage grade, and no surprises for the crew. This checklist covers what’s on you as the property owner — the stuff you can knock out ahead of time to save yourself money and headaches on pour day.

A concrete truck holds about 9 cubic metres and weighs 25+ tonnes empty. Loaded, it’s pushing 40 tonnes. That truck has to get in, get to the pour, and get out — often turning around on your yard on the way. Plan for the truck before you plan for the concrete.

Booked a pour and want a pre-pour site walk?

Call (236) 880-3675 or text (236) 880-3675. Fabien will walk the site before the trucks show up so there are no surprises.

The full pre-pour checklist

1. Truck access — the make-or-break item

Concrete trucks are big. Loaded, they can’t back up long distances without spotters and they can’t turn tight. Before pour day, walk the route from the range road to the pour site and honestly assess:

Is the approach wide enough? Minimum 12 feet of clear width, more if there’s a curve.
Is the approach firm enough? A soft gravel or muddy approach that a 40-tonne truck sinks into is the fastest way to turn a pour into a disaster. If you had rain in the last few days, drive the approach in your loaded 3/4-ton and see how it feels. If your truck is leaving ruts, a concrete truck will bury itself.
Where does the truck turn around? Concrete trucks aren’t doing 15-point turns. They need real turnaround space or a proper loop.
Are there low branches? A concrete truck stands about 12–14 feet tall with the chute up. Trim overhanging trees.
Are gates wide enough? Standard farm gate is usually fine but double-check.
Can a pump truck get there if needed? If the pour is out of reach of the mixer chute (more than about 15 feet), we bring a pump truck or line pump. Pump trucks are even bigger than mixers and need clear access too.

If the access looks marginal, tell your contractor early. There are options — extra gravel on the approach, delaying until the ground dries, using a line pump instead of driving to the pour — but they all need to be arranged before pour day, not decided on the fly with three trucks lined up on the road.

2. Clear the pour area completely

Move anything that’s in the way: parked vehicles, equipment, fuel tanks, pallets, garden hoses, hay bales. Give the crew 10 feet of working space around the pour area if you can.
Move anything you don’t want splattered. Concrete splashes. Fresh concrete on the paint of your truck or the side of the house is a real pain to remove.
Move the dogs and the kids and the cat. Fresh concrete is caustic and paw prints last forever.
Cover or move any exposed wood siding, brick, or glass near the pour zone.

3. Mark the layout

You’ll usually agree on the pour footprint with your contractor during the quote, but the physical marking has to exist on site. Options:

Stakes and string lines for the outline of the slab
Marking paint for reference lines
Batter boards for square corners

In most cases the contractor does the layout as part of the job — but you should walk the marked layout with them before excavation starts and confirm this is where you want it. Move a shop slab 3 feet to one side after excavation and you’re paying for the rework.

4. Know your utilities — call before you dig

Alberta has a free utility locate service — call Alberta One-Call at 1-800-242-3447 or submit a request at utilitysafety.ca. This is not optional. Cutting into a buried gas line, power line, or water line during excavation is dangerous, illegal in most cases without a locate, and expensive.

Farm-specific things to know that One-Call doesn’t always cover:

Private power runs to shops, pumps, or bin yards — if you or a previous owner ran power underground yourself, One-Call has no record. You need to remember where it is.
Private waterlines to livestock troughs, yard hydrants, house wells — same story.
Old septic and drainage tile that’s been buried for decades — often no record anywhere, just the memory of whoever put it in.
Aeration lines and grain-yard power runs from earlier bin builds.

Anything you know is buried in or near the pour area, tell your contractor before pour day. Better to reroute a line or shift the pour 4 feet than to cut something you can’t replace easily.

5. Establish the drainage grade before base goes in

Where does water go after it hits your slab? This is the question that saves the pour long-term. Every farm slab needs a minimum 1% slope (about 1/8 inch per foot) away from any building, in a direction that leads water away to ditches, swales, or drainage that already exists.

Things to look at before the pour:

Existing grade around the site. Which direction does water flow now? Match the pour to that.
Building eaves and roof runoff. Where does the eavestrough dump? Not into your bin yard, hopefully. Add downspout extensions or splash blocks before the pour.
Winter snow shed. Where does snow slide off the shop roof? Plan for it to melt away from the slab, not pool on it.
Where the shop door apron drains to. A concrete apron in front of a shop door should shed water away from the door opening.

6. Gravel base — delivered and placed early

The gravel base under the slab has to be:

Delivered
Placed to depth
Graded to slope
Compacted (in lifts if the base is deep)

This is all before the concrete truck shows up. If your contractor is handling base, this is on their schedule. If you’re supplying your own gravel (some farmers do), get it on site 3–5 days ahead of pour day so there’s time to place and compact without holding the pour hostage.

7. Forms and rebar — in place and inspected

Forms (the wood or steel edges that hold the concrete in shape) built to the right dimensions, staked solidly enough that a full slab of wet concrete can’t push them out
Rebar tied on chairs at the right depth (see our shop foundation thickness guide for spec)
Anchor bolt templates in place for grain bin pads — the bolt-hole template from the bin manufacturer needs to be dead accurate
Any embedded items — conduit for future power, drain sleeves, anchor points, floor drain rough-ins — installed and secured before the pour

If you want a floor drain or an embedded conduit for future power, this is when it has to go in. Not after.

8. Water on site for finishing and curing

The pour crew needs water for cleanup and for controlling surface finish. If the site doesn’t have a hydrant within hose reach, plan for a water tank or barrels. Same for wet-curing the slab after finish — soaker hoses or blankets kept damp need a water supply.

9. Power for tools and lights

Trowels, pumps, and cure lights need power. If the pour site is remote from a shop, plan for a generator or run temporary cord. Confirm this with the crew ahead of time.

10. Weather planning — the day-of factor

Watch the 5-day forecast the week of the pour. Things that can trigger a reschedule:

Rain within 12–24 hours after the finish. A hard rain on fresh finished concrete destroys the surface.
Overnight lows below 5°C without cold-weather protection planned
Very hot windy days (30°C+) without wet-cure supplies on hand
Wind gusts high enough to blow the finish around or lift protection

More detail on when to pour and when to hold off in our Alberta farm concrete pour calendar.

Not sure if your site is ready?

Text a photo of the pour area and approach to (236) 880-3675. Fabien will look it over and tell you what still needs to happen before the trucks show up.

The morning-of checklist

Day of pour, before the first truck arrives:

Approach clear of vehicles. Move your own trucks and equipment off the driveway.
Pets and kids inside or well away from the pour area.
Yard gates open if the truck is coming through them.
Someone at the site who can make decisions. Ideally you or a spouse. Small changes come up on pour day — joint locations, edge details, exact stopping points — and having to phone you for every decision slows the crew.
Water and power confirmed on.
Weather rechecked one more time.
Cure protection ready — blankets, poly, or hoarding materials on site if the weather calls for them.

After the pour — your job for the next 28 days

The crew finishes and leaves. The slab isn’t ready to use yet. On you:

Keep everyone off it. No foot traffic for at least 24 hours, ideally 48. No vehicles for at least a week. No heavy loads for 28 days.
Keep it moist for at least 7 days. Wet-cure with soaker hoses, wet burlap, plastic sheeting, or apply a curing compound. Whichever method your contractor used, keep it going for the recommended duration.
Watch the weather. Cover the slab with blankets if a cold snap comes in during the first week.
Watch for kids and pets. Fresh concrete stays soft enough to leave prints for a day or two.
Don’t backfill against the slab too early. Give the concrete time to reach real strength.

The most common ways farmers slow down their own pours

Site not cleared — crew spends the first hour moving stuff instead of working
Access not confirmed — first truck backs in and gets stuck in soft gravel
Utilities not located — excavation stops mid-morning waiting for locates
Weather ignored — pouring in a marginal forecast and hoping
Nobody home to make decisions — contractor calling the phone for 20 minutes to confirm something small
Water and power not organized — stopping to fix that instead of finishing

Every one of these adds hours or forces a reschedule. And a concrete truck that’s been sitting fully loaded past the allowable time in the drum has to dump the load somewhere — someone’s paying for that.

What we handle vs what’s on you

When JFK Surfaces does your farm pour, we handle: excavation (if included in the scope), base placement and compaction, forms, rebar, ordering and coordinating the concrete, the pour and finish, control joint cutting, and initial cure protection.

What’s on you: truck access to the site, utility knowledge and locates, marking any private buried services we don’t know about, clearing the pour area of personal items, making layout decisions in advance, being reachable on pour day, and keeping people and animals off the fresh slab.

We’ll go through this list with you during the site walk so nothing gets missed.

Book a pre-pour site walk

A 30-minute walk-through before pour day saves hours and money on pour day. Call Fabien at (236) 880-3675 or text (236) 880-3675. We work across Central Alberta from Red Deer County. Or use the contact page to reach us by email.