BIG POURS GET PRICED. SMALL ONES GET ABSORBED.
Every concrete estimate prices the main pours carefully. The punch pours, the curb fix and the closeout dribs get whatever's left in the number, and each one carries a fee the bid never knew about.
A concrete order under a full truck carries a short-load fee of $40 to $60 a yard, which puts $200 to $400 on a small pour before anybody mixes anything. Punch pours, curb repairs and closeout work are all short loads by definition, so the last 5 percent of a job is bought at premium prices against a bid written for full trucks. Concrete subs at $1M to $5M run 21 percent gross margin against a 23 percent target, and on a lot of jobs the small pours are most of that two point difference.
This is a job gross margin problem that never reaches a margin conversation, because it reads as a handful of small invoices at the end of a job that everybody is already finished thinking about. One line in the estimate template fixes it permanently.
This post is one omitted cost inside the bid. That page is what concrete overhead runs by revenue band and what the target is. Read Concrete Overhead Rate Benchmarks for the complete treatment, worked figures included.
WHAT IS A SHORT-LOAD FEE, AND WHY DOES EVERY JOB END WITH THEM?
A ready-mix plant charges a short-load fee when an order comes in under a full truck. Somewhere between $40 and $60 a yard depending on the plant and the market. On a four yard punch pour that's $160 to $240 on top of a load that already costs money, so a small pour can carry a 25 to 40 percent premium over the rate in your bid.
Now look at how a concrete job ends. The main pours are done and priced. What's left is a curb section that got damaged by another trade, a pad the mechanical contractor needed moved, two small equipment bases and a stretch of sidewalk that failed inspection. Every one of those is under a truck.
So the closeout of a concrete job is bought almost entirely at short-load prices, against a bid built on the delivered rate for full trucks at $125 to $195 a yard. No plant is taking advantage here. That premium is the real cost of sending a truck out for four yards, and it belongs in the estimate.
THE FEE IS THE SMALL HALF OF WHAT A PUNCH POUR COSTS.
Concrete is the cheap part of a small pour. The expensive part is that a crew has to show for it.
A four yard pour needs a truck sequenced, forms set, a finisher on site and somebody to clean up. That's most of a day for two or three people producing four yards of revenue, against a main pour where the same crew places sixty. Per yard, your labor cost on a punch pour can run several times the rate the job was bid at.
This is why punch lists eat margin in a way that surprises people. A general contractor's punch list looks like a paperwork exercise. On a concrete sub it's a series of days where a crew is committed to almost no billable volume, each one carrying a delivery premium on top.
WHY IT NEVER APPEARS IN A JOB COST REVIEW.
Three things hide it. The pours are small, so no single invoice looks worth chasing. They fall at the end of a job, when the closeout is being pushed through and nobody is looking for a pricing lesson. And they get coded to the same material and labor codes as the main pours, so they average into a number that reads acceptable.
The 5 to 10 percent overage most concrete subs order on a pour makes it harder still. Overage is a real and correct practice, and it means a small variance in yardage never reads as a signal. A short-load premium disappears into the same tolerance.
So the loss is structural and invisible at the same time, which is the combination that lets a two point margin difference survive year after year in a business where everybody knows their unit prices.
MOST SUBS MISS THIS: THE SCHEDULE DECIDES THE PRICE.
Short-load fees are the part of this everybody eventually notices. The one that stays hidden is timing. Weekend and off-hour deliveries carry a premium of $50 to $300 a load, and truck standby starts billing the moment a pour slips.
That means the same concrete costs different money depending on when a general contractor asks for it, and a bid priced at weekday rates absorbs every schedule change for free. A Saturday pour to recover somebody else's delay is a real cost transfer from the party who caused it to the party doing the work.
Here's the move. Put the delivery premium in the bid as a stated condition: this price is for weekday deliveries during plant hours, off-hour and weekend pours are priced at cost plus. Now a Saturday request becomes a change order conversation before the trucks roll, and if the general contractor wants Saturday badly enough to pay for it, you're covered either way.
WHAT TO PUT IN THE ESTIMATE TEMPLATE.
Four lines, and they go in once so nobody has to remember them per bid. A short-load allowance sized to the punch and closeout volume this kind of job really carries. A crew day rate for small pours priced on the day, since the yardage does not cover it. A stated condition on delivery hours. And retainage timing noted against the closeout, because retainage runs 5 to 10 percent and the punch work happens before it releases.
The allowance is the one that changes the number. Pull the last three closed jobs and total every load under a full truck, with its fee. That figure divided by contract value is the percentage your template is missing, and on most concrete subs it's between half a point and two points of gross margin.
THE ONE THING TO DO THIS WEEK.
Take one recently closed job and pull every concrete delivery ticket for the last month of it. Circle every load under a full truck. Add up the short-load fees and any off-hour premiums, then add the crew hours those pours consumed.
That total is what your closeout costs you, and it's the number that turns a punch list from an administrative nuisance into a line in your estimate. Most concrete subs have never seen it as one figure, which is the only reason it survives.
THE SHORT LIST.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
