With a skid steer and the right set of attachments, a small crew can handle the full job of laying concrete slabs, from leveling to pouring to post-pour cleanup. Shop floors, outbuildings, and commercial pads are perfect concrete projects for this versatile piece of construction and excavation equipment — pretty big to do by hand, but much more efficient if you don’t need a huge crew or a whole series of trucks. The trick is knowing how to set up your site, avoid rookie mistakes, and use your tools the right way.
Here’s a quick guide to how to lay a concrete slab with a skid steer. could be faster and cheaper than you'd expect!
How to Lay a Concrete Slab: Start With Smart Site Prep!
Before you even think about pouring, you've got to prep the pad.
- Use a 4-in-1 bucket to clear brush, strip topsoil, and backfill low areas with road base or gravel.
- Compact everything thoroughly. A solid, level foundation is what keeps your slab from cracking down the road.
- The 4-in-1 bucket can open to act like a dozer blade or box blade, which makes rough grading and edge work easier.
Want more help with leveling? For larger sites, a land leveler attachment might help, but for most slab pours, the 4-in-1 does the job just fine.
Time to Form, Grade, and Double-Check
Once the site is cleared and compacted, the next step is setting your forms and getting your grade right. Poor prep at this stage leads to uneven slabs, standing water, or cracks down the line, so it’s worth slowing down and getting it right.
- Set your forms and use a laser level or string lines to double-check your grade. It’s easy to eyeball things and end up with an uneven slab.
- Pay close attention to your slopes — especially if this is a shop or pad that needs drainage. A 1–2% grade (roughly 1/8” to 1/4" per foot) is typical when drainage is a concern.
- Double-check! Once your forms are secure, give the whole base one final pass to clean up any uneven spots or settle the material.
Get this part right, and the rest of your pour gets a whole lot easier. The laser leveling is huge, here. As Moorhead, Minnesota-based contractor Josh Krief of K+L Construction explained to For Construction Pros:
“It's not unheard of for one worker to single-handedly level 6,000 square feet in 45 minutes. It would take a half-dozen guys a couple hours to do about the same work without the laser grader. It saves us time and manpower. We use it once or twice a week and wish we could use it more.”
Pour It Right With a Concrete Hopper Attachment
This is where your skid steer becomes the MVP. Instead of pushing wheelbarrows back and forth or renting a pump truck, you can use a skid steer concrete bucket (specifically a concrete hopper) to move and pour the mix with precision. Load it from the truck, drive it straight to the forms, and pour right where you need it.
Compared to a regular skid steer bucket, a concrete hopper attachment:
- Handles optimal flow control for slab pours
- Pours into tight spaces without spilling
- Keeps the work clean and reduces wasted material
Check out these concrete hopper tips that will save your pour for nuanced advice on how to work faster and avoid dry spots with an attachment like this.
Don’t Skip the Cleanup
Once the slab is poured and troweled, it’s time to clean up. The same 4-in-1 bucket you used for site prep can now scoop up debris, collect unused gravel or mix, and help backfill around the forms once the slab is cured. If you’ve been breaking up and replacing old concrete, make sure you work efficiently with that versatile skid steer to dispose of construction debris without losing time.
So there you have it! It doesn’t necessarily take a big budget or big crew to complete some commercial concrete slab construction. Smart planning and the right attachments can get a small team to the finish line with just a skid steer and the right attachments, from start to finish.
Connect with Prime Attachments to talk through more options and tools that can help with commercial construction projects so that your skid steer gets the most bang for your buck.
