Tidal Wave Car Wash — Kansas City Metro
New-construction car wash concrete, self-performed from excavation through backfill — foundations, equipment pads, tunnel slab, and the drainage-critical flatwork the whole site depends on.
What Did Ford Concrete Build for Tidal Wave Car Wash?
The Project
Ford Concrete self-performed the concrete for a new-construction Tidal Wave Car Wash in the Kansas City metro — grade-beam and equipment foundations with their anchor templates and trench drains, the tunnel slab, the vacuum-island pads, and the approach aprons and lanes. One crew ran the full sequence from excavation and subgrade prep through pour, finish, cure, and backfill, on a site where every surface has to drain.
A car wash is a drainage and equipment problem solved in concrete: the machinery bolts to precise foundations, the wash bays live under water and chemicals, and every slab has to fall to a drain. Self-performing the concrete meant one crew owned every step, base to backfill. Here is how the work broke down.
At a Glance
Project Facts
We describe the scope we self-performed rather than publishing estimated quantities. The specific location and individual figures for this project are not listed here.
Scope of Work
How the Work Broke Down — Excavation to Backfill
We self-performed the full concrete sequence: excavation and grading, grade-beam and equipment foundations, formwork and reinforcing steel, the tunnel slab and drainage flatwork, form stripping and curing, and backfill. One crew, one chain of accountability, from bare ground to a wash that sheds water the way it was engineered to.
Excavation & grading
Cut and grade the site and proof-roll the subgrade, setting the elevations that make a wash site drain. A car wash is a drainage problem before it is anything else — every surface has to fall to a trench drain or a collection point, so the grading is planned around the water long before the first slab is formed. Get the grades wrong and the site fights standing water for its whole life.
Foundations, formwork & rebar
Form the grade-beam and equipment foundations, tie the reinforcing steel, and set the anchor-bolt templates, sleeves, and trench-drain forms to the equipment drawings. Wash machinery is bolted to concrete under constant vibration and load, so the anchor layout and embed placement have to match the manufacturer template exactly — there is no adjusting a mis-set anchor once the concrete cures around it.
Pour & finish
Place and finish the tunnel slab, the wash-bay flatwork sloped to its trench drains, the approach aprons, the vacuum-island pads, and the entry and exit lanes. The wash surfaces live under water and chemicals every day, so the concrete is placed and finished for durability and positive drainage — the slope to the drains is held to the plan, not approximated.
Strip & cure
Strip forms as the concrete gains strength and protect the slabs through their cure. A wash slab that never fully cured will scale and spall under the constant wet-dry and freeze-thaw cycling a car wash sees, so the cure is built into the schedule. Curing is where long-term durability is won on a surface that is wet more often than it is dry.
Backfill & site tie-in
Backfill against the foundations, bring the site to finish grade, and tie the flatwork and drainage into the lanes, curbs, and collection points so water goes where it is designed to go. Self-performing the sequence end to end means one crew owns the drainage result from bare ground to a wash that sheds water the way it was engineered to.
Why It Matters
Why Drainage and Anchor Placement Are the Whole Job
On a car wash, two things decide whether the concrete works: does every slab fall to its drain, and did the equipment anchors land exactly on the manufacturer template. Both are set before the pour and locked in the moment the concrete cures — there is no fixing them later. That is the same discipline of getting slope and layout right the first time that keeps a residential patio from ponding water.
A slab that does not drain is the most common flatwork failure we get called to replace, on car washes and backyards alike. The fix is never a better sealer — it is getting the slope and the drainage right before the concrete goes down. We plan the water first on a commercial wash and on a residential patio, because standing water is what shortens a slab's life.
See how we bid new construction on our commercial concrete for general contractors page and our retail & commercial work, or the flatwork side of the job on commercial parking lots. Browse more of what we build on the project case studies page.
Building a Car Wash or Commercial Pad? Let's Talk Scope.
From equipment foundations to drainage flatwork, we self-perform the concrete and own the result. Send us the plans and pour dates and we'll tell you straight whether we're the right crew for it.
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