PourGauge is an independent site that works out concrete quantities — slabs, footings, piers, fence posts, steps, block walls, gravel and pavers.
It exists because the numbers are all published somewhere — bag yields on the sack, strength classes in the code, waste factors in every estimator's head — and none of it is in one place when you are standing at the trade counter deciding how much to order.
Where the numbers come from
- bag yields printed on Quikrete and Sakrete mixes
- IRC Chapter 4 for footing dimensions and IRC R311.7 for step geometry
- the 1,500 psf presumptive soil bearing value the IRC allows where no soil test exists
Every page states the source and the assumptions behind its figures, because a number without its assumptions is not much use. Where a figure is trade convention rather than a measured value — the ten per cent you add for waste, say — the page says which it is.
Cubic yards is not the last number
Most concrete calculators stop at cubic yards. The number that decides whether the work stands up is usually somewhere else — bearing area under a pier, thickness against projection on a footing, or the fact that step volume grows with the square of the step count.
What this site does not do
We do not size structural members for anything carrying a roof, a second story or a beam splice. That needs a drawing from an engineer, and we say so on the pages where it comes up.
Who runs it
Written by one person who has ordered enough short loads to care about the answer. There is no editorial board here. What should earn your trust instead is that every number names the bag, the code table or the supplier sheet it came from.
The arithmetic lives in code and is checked against every slab size the site can produce, so a wrong constant is wrong everywhere at once and gets caught, rather than wrong on one page nobody rereads. Errors get fixed and the fix is noted at the foot of the page.
How it is paid for
PourGauge is free to read and funded by display advertising. Nothing on the site is sponsored and there are no affiliate links, so no supplier gains anything from what a page recommends.
Getting in touch
Corrections and questions go to [email protected]. A correction is worth more to this site than any other message — the editorial policy sets out what happens to one.