Subgrades · aggregate base · dewatering · Slabcreek & Antler County · est. 2004
A slab is a rumour until the ground under it is proven.
Slabcreek Site Prep builds the layer nobody sees: subgrades proof-rolled and corrected, aggregate base placed in compacted lifts, and wet ground dewatered before anything rests on it. Your concrete crew gets a surface they can pour against on the first attempt — and a density log that says why.
The Slabcreek standard
Proof-rolled, or it is not a subgrade
A loaded tandem truck drives every square foot of your finished subgrade before we call it done. Where a tire finds deflection, the soft spot is over-excavated, corrected with stone and re-rolled — a five-dollar fix on day four instead of a five-thousand-dollar slab repair in year three. The proof-roll goes in the log, tire by tire, and the log goes home with you.
The deflection guarantee
If a slab poured on a Slabcreek subgrade settles unevenly inside five years, the correction is ours: re-shoot, re-proof, re-log. Twenty-two years and the clause has been invoked three times — once was a broken water line nobody told us about.
Subgrades, corrected
Cut to elevation, then fixed where the ground argues: soft spots over-excavated, stone-wrapped and re-compacted in lifts, every correction logged entry by entry. What a slab rests on should be a record, not a hope.
Aggregate base, two lifts
Base stone placed and compacted in two lifts, graded to the model at ±0.25 in, moisture-corrected and proof-rolled before the forms arrive. Under interior slabs we take the lifts to 98 percent standard Proctor — one extra pass that buys a decade of floor that never knows it floats.
Dewatering & wet ground
Perimeter underdrains, sump pits and interceptor trenches that let a wet site carry its own construction. The Antler flats hold water like a held breath; we let it out before the first stone, not after the first failure.
Numbers before adjectives
The spec is the sales pitch
Every number in this band is a line on a log you can read: Proctor results per lift, rover shots at the corners, proof-roll notes tire by tire. Slabcreek does not sell confidence — it sells evidence, which is what a slab, a engineer of record and an owner can all agree on at the same table.
The sequence
From stripped ground to pour-ready
Five stages, each one cheaper than the mistake it prevents. The concrete crew is booked for stage five, never stage three — a pour against an unproven subgrade is a schedule betting against physics.
Day 0
Strip & shoot
Topsoil stripped to its pile, the parcel shot to model, and the cut sheet written against the floor elevations on your plan set — not against a grade stake somebody set last season.
Days 1–3
Cut & correct
The subgrade cut to elevation, then corrected: soft spots over-excavated, stone-wrapped, and re-compacted in lifts. The correction log starts here, entry by entry.
Days 3–5
Base in two lifts
Aggregate placed in two compacted lifts, moisture-corrected, graded to ±0.25 in on machine control. Under slabs, the second lift is taken to 98 percent Proctor, pass by pass.
Day 6
Proof-roll
The loaded truck, every square foot, deflections marked and repaired while the roller is still on site. The proof-run is photographed and logged — the last argument a subgrade ever has to win.
Pour day
Handover
The log bound — Proctors, rover shots, corrections, proof-roll — and handed to the concrete crew with the subgrade. They pour against paper and ground that agree with each other.
2025 — 2026
Proven and poured on
Six subgrades from the last two seasons, photographed at proof-roll or handover. The buildings on top of them are the captions the log cannot carry.
Back of the log
The quiet record
A subgrade contractor’s best review is an absence: no cracked slabs, no mud-season calls, no engineers squinting at cores. The figures here are the whole marketing department, because they are the only part of the work a customer will ever be able to check.
Reviewed
The engineer of record’s copy
I specify 98 percent Proctor under interior slabs and most bids treat the number as a suggestion. Slabcreek hands me a log with a Proctor per lift, a proof-roll record with tire locations, and rover shots at the corners. My inspection takes twenty minutes on their pads because the paperwork already did it. They are the only site-prep outfit in Antler County I have never had to write a letter about.
The Antler flats
Wet ground is a schedule problem wearing a boot
The flats hold water like a grudge, and every spring someone tries to compact fill on top of it — which is how pads develop opinions by April. We cut perimeter underdrains and interceptor trench first, let the table fall below the work, and build on ground that has already agreed to hold still. The dewatering stays in the price of the pad, because the alternative stays in the price of the building.
What is proof-rolling, exactly?
A loaded truck driving the finished subgrade while someone watches the tires. Deflection — the ground giving under the wheel — marks a soft spot that gets dug out, corrected with stone and re-rolled. It is the cheapest test in construction and the one that saves the most slabs; we run it on every subgrade and log what it says.
Why 98 percent Proctor under a slab?
Standard structural fill is specified at 95; interior slabs live on their base alone for decades, so we take the extra three points — thinner lifts, one more pass each. The cost is hours; the return is a floor that never settles, cracks or pumps. Every lift is tested, and the numbers ride with the log.
My site is wet all spring. Can it still be built on?
Usually, after the water is managed rather than fought: perimeter underdrains, interceptor trenches and sump pits that lower the water table below the work. We dewater first and build second — the alternative is compacting saturated fill, which is how pads develop opinions in April.
Do you pour the concrete too?
No — and we will not pretend to. We finish at pour-ready: subgrade proven, base compacted, log bound and handed to whoever pours. Concrete crews who have worked our pads tend to become our best references, which is the arrangement exactly as it should be.
Straight answers
Asked by the people who build on it
The four every builder’s call starts with. If yours is not here, the office line answers seven to five, and the person on it has proof-rolled something in your township this month.
Subgrade season books from April · (555) 052-7719 · grade@slabcreeksiteprep.example
Send the plan set, get the log
Parcel, floor elevations and the date the concrete crew wants the ground. We strip, correct, place and prove — and the log is part of the price, not an option on it. grade@slabcreeksiteprep.example