Commercial Construction & Contracting Blog | Articles & Resources

Does Your Parking Lot Need a Concrete Dumpster Pad?

Written by Eric Park | May 18, 2018

Trash happens. But commercial properties shouldn't let the trash define them. A concrete dumpster area that handles refuse in an aesthetically minded and functional way lets visitors see dumpsters without really noticing them. It all begins with a concrete dumpster pad that can withstand the stresses imposed on it.

Why You Should Be Using a Durable Concrete Dumpster Pad:

Commercial dumpsters are heavy, steel boxes. A 4-cubic-yard container can weigh 800 pounds empty. All that weight bears down on four wheels or skids, putting tremendous pressure on the pad beneath. Additionally, garbage trucks are extremely heavy. The trucks can also cause a lot of damage when driving on the pad loading and unloading the dumpster.

A concrete dumpster pad that fractures under the pressure becomes a business liability. It can foster dumpster instability and put workers at risk.

Making sure your pad is done correctly is key to maintaining your business’ aesthetic standards.

How Does It Work?

To ensure long service life, we recommend that a poured concrete dumpster pad be 6" thick, rest on a compressed gravel sub-grade, and be reinforced with welded steel mesh. By design, such a pad will be a far more durable paved product than surrounding asphalt or concrete pavement. It must be stronger to withstand the pounding it will take.

It should also be:

  • Wide enough to incorporate within its boundaries steel posts for slatted fencing that will screen the sometimes-overflowing dumpsters from public view.
  • Deep enough to allow placement of concrete abutments behind the dumpsters to ensure containers are not placed so far back that they damage rear fencing.
  • Extend forward from the dumpsters 12-15 feet so that the front wheels of a dumpster truck can rest on the reinforced pavement when it loads and unloads the heavy containers.

We Build In Good Faith:

Park Enterprise Construction Co. pours concrete dumpster pads the same way it builds highways and installs underground utilities -- with integrity. When we complete a project, a constructed product functions as it was designed to function -- focusing on reliability, durability, and respect for its surrounding environment. These are Ohio ethical values to which we fully subscribe.

Before a project begins, we fully communicate construction costs and processes to our customer. During construction, we maintain a small-footprint work area so that business traffic is not impeded. We complete projects on schedule. We always guarantee our work against defects. In short, we put our customer’s business first in delivering what has been ordered from us in good faith.