Gold’s Concrete is a small, privately owned concrete construction company that has established a reputation in the Denver, Colorado area for hard work and reliability since 2010. Gold’s worked initially on landscaping and flatwork projects only, but demand called for partnerships with local builders and Gold’s expertise in structural concrete applications was soon put to the test.

In 2017 and onward Gold’s Concrete was awarded several crawlspace to basement conversion projects and became known for running a specialized crew that was dedicated to this specific area of construction. Employed on all kinds of technical and interesting crawlspace conversion projects across the Front Range of Colorado, Gold’s takes on not only the concrete installation but the initial cut-out and excavation scope of work in these conversions as well.

Other crews or specialists on Gold’s team attend to retaining walls, foundations, curb and gutter, flatwork, etc. Today Gold’s Concrete is running an entire fleet of trucks and trailers, skid steers, and a mini-excavator with about three different crews that are dispatched to three or four different ongoing jobs at any given time.

Recently Gold’s Concrete expanded and opened up shop in West Valley City, Utah. I was invited and agreed to be the primary representative of this endeavor, so I am now in Utah doing some of the footwork to try and get our name out to property owners of the Salt Lake Valley.

The task has been slow in coming but a few weeks ago an interesting bid request came across my desk and, after contacting the contractor to confirm the request, I set to work putting together a bid packet. I scheduled a time to show up for a site walk, and here is the information I gathered during that walk:

In the floor of bays 6 and 10 of a Pep Boys auto shop in West Valley City, UT, where old hydraulic equipment was pulled up from out of the floor and removed, there are voids in the floor that need filled and smoothed over.

We accounted for approximately 1.2 cubic yards of 4,000 psi concrete, or 54 80lb bags to fill in the voids without removal of existing metal sleeves or other mechanisms. Simply fill the holes and smooth trowel finish as clean as possible to match the area that has already been filled, as seen in the pic below.

It was a very small scope of work and hit our minimum here at $1,800.00. I put the small bid packet together which included the drawings, dimensions and description of how we understand the repair will be done, along with our formal cost estimate, and sent it back to the contractor. A few weeks went by and I received an email confirmation that we were awarded the project.

The morning prior to the day of the job I went out to do a “pre-construction walk” and take some pictures of the surrounding area. I found that one of the bays was not ready for repair because three feet of oil from the old hydraulic system still sat inside the long, rectangular shaped void.

I contacted the contractor to let them know what I had found. They acknowledged the possibility of a mobilization charge if we had to come back, and asked me to stay on schedule to do the area in bay 10. I met with our guys the following morning and outlined the tiny project, which now was only half of a tiny project.

I did some quick accounting on the logistics of this and realized there was no way the job would be profitable if we had to come back a second time to complete it, even with an additional mobilization charge. On the contrary, it would be a loss for everyone.

Our good men offered to go ahead and pump the oil out of the void themselves, so we could finish the job and be done with it.

I offered to draw up a change order for $850 if the contractor would approve it. “It would cost less than another mobilization for us to come back, and it would all be done today,” I explained. The CO was approved, our guys brought out a shop vac, rented a pump and got to pumping.

They pumped about 64 gallons of oil out of that tiny hole in the ground, then put a layer of sand down to absorb any oil that might be remaining in cracks or crevices inside of the hole. We filled the voids, smooth troweled over them, cleaned up and got the shop manager to give his approval on the finished work.

It wasn’t exactly a breaking point in my career. It wasn’t the deal that changed the course of history. It was just another day, another job in need of Gold’s Concrete attention, and another job well done. And that is good enough for me.

My name is Ricardo. I’m the general Sales Manager for Gold’s Concrete, now also managing our Utah division in West Valley City.

If you’re in the Salt Lake Valley area of Utah and need to talk to someone about your upcoming concrete project, whether it’s in the preliminary stages of planning and budgeting, or you’re ready to close and collaborate on a plan, whether it’s a big project or a small one, I can get the job done for you quickly, reliably, at a reasonable price and time stamped with Gold’s Concrete gold standard level of craftsmanship.