The category of concrete construction that involves pouring and finishing horizontal slabs. This includes sidewalks, driveways, warehouse floors, and patios. It requires specific finishing skills and tools, like bull floats and power trowels, which differ significantly from the techniques used for vertical walls or columns.
Heard on the job
He spent ten years doing commercial flatwork before moving over to bridge foundations.
Related terms
Slab on grade
A concrete floor supported directly by the earth below rather than by structural elements.
Power trowel
A gas or electric machine with rotating blades that floats and trowels large concrete slabs.
Bull float
A wide flat float on a long handle, pushed across a fresh slab right after screeding to smooth and close it.