Concrete Slabs · Orlando, FL

Concrete Slabs for Sheds, Pads and Parking in Orlando

A concrete slab in Orlando runs $4–$10 per sq ft installed as of October 2026. A shed, AC or parking pad goes through the same engineering permit review as a patio, and on a redeveloped lot like Baldwin Park's former military base ground, a site visit checks what kind of fill sits under the slab before pricing the job.

By the Opera Concrete & Pavers estimating team · Updated October 1, 2026

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A shed, AC or parking pad goes through the same permit review

The city's permitting checklist covers any slab, not just a driveway or a patio, under the same engineering review, with a dimensioned survey showing the pad's location relative to the property line (City of Orlando, Residential Permitting Requirements). A recorded Notice of Commencement applies once the contract passes $5,000, and the 2026 building-permit exemption for work under $7,500 still doesn't reach this engineering review (HB 803 exemption guide). A small shed pad and a full RV or boat parking slab both fall under the same category; size is what changes the fee and the review time, not the type of permit.

A Shed Pad Still Needs Real Subgrade Prep, Not Just a Tamped Spot

A shed footprint is small compared to a driveway or garage slab, but the ground underneath it is often the same flatwoods soil, Myakka, Smyrna or EauGallie among the common series, with a water table that can sit within 18 inches of the surface for part of most years. Treating a Orlando shed pad as too small to need real subgrade work, removing saturated native soil and bringing in compacted fill, is how a light structure ends up with a door that no longer closes square a year or two after the pad settles unevenly. The weight on a shed pad is lower than on a driveway, but the soil underneath does not know the difference.

Baldwin Park's redevelopment means a site visit checks the fill first

Baldwin Park was built on the former Naval Training Center Orlando Main Base, identified for closure in 1993 and redeveloped afterward into residential streets and lots (City of Orlando, Baldwin Park history). A slab poured on ground that was graded and filled as part of that redevelopment doesn't behave the same as one poured on undisturbed native soil, so we check what's actually under a Baldwin Park lot, compacted engineered fill versus the native flatwoods sand found elsewhere in the city, before pricing a shed or parking pad there.

What Sits on the Pad Decides How Thick It Needs to Be

Florida's code minimum for a slab on the ground is 3 1/2 inches, but that number is written for ordinary floors, not for what actually ends up parked or stored on an accessory pad. A simple shed floor can often stay close to the standard 4-inch, 3,000 to 4,000 psi slab built for light, evenly spread loads, while a pad meant for an RV or a boat trailer in Orlando needs to go to 5 or 6 inches, the same jump a driveway would make for a point load concentrated on a narrow set of wheels. Deciding which category a pad falls into before the pour avoids thickening it later, which means tearing it out.

A Baldwin Park shed slab, worked out in square feet

Say a Baldwin Park homeowner pours a 10 by 10 foot shed pad, 100 square feet. At $4–$10 per sq ft installed, that lands between roughly $400 and $1,000 depending on the mix and reinforcement. A larger 20 by 20 foot parking pad, 400 square feet, scales the same per-square-foot range to roughly $1,600 to $4,000, with the fill check adding a step a slab on undisturbed ground elsewhere in the city wouldn't need.

Getting the Truck to a Pad That Isn't Next to the Street

A driveway sits right where a ready-mix truck can back up to it, but a shed pad, a carport slab tucked beside the house or an RV pad set back in the yard often does not, especially once a fence, a gate or a narrow side yard is in the way. On a Orlando job where the truck cannot reach the forms directly, the pour goes by pump truck or by wheelbarrow relay from wherever the truck can park, which changes both the schedule and the crew size needed for the day. Confirming access before the pour date is set, not on pour morning, is what keeps a tight-access pad from turning into a delay nobody planned for.

A Garage Addition Slab Isn't the Same Permit Case as a Shed Pad

Structural concrete, the kind that becomes part of a building rather than sitting under a freestanding accessory structure, falls under Florida's state-certified structural masonry specialty contractor scope, which covers foundations, slabs, footers and walls. A detached shed pad in Orlando and a slab poured as part of a garage addition tied into the house can look similar from a distance, but the addition slab is far more likely to need a permit and sign-off that a simple accessory pad would not. Assuming both pours qualify for the same lighter paperwork path because they are both just a slab is how a structural job ends up started without the review it actually needed.

Re-Checking a Pad's Drainage Path Each Time the Yard Changes

A shed or garage pad's original grading can quietly stop working once a few years of landscaping, new mulch beds or settling soil change how water moves across a Orlando yard, sometimes redirecting runoff back toward the pad instead of away from it the way it was built to drain. On flatwoods lots, where the water table already sits close to the surface for months at a stretch, that kind of slow change matters more than it would on better-draining ground. Walking the perimeter of the pad after any major landscaping work and confirming water still sheds away from it, rather than assuming the original grading still holds, is cheap insurance against the saturation that leads to base problems.

Frequently asked questions

Does a shed slab need a permit in Orlando?

Yes, a shed, AC or parking pad goes through the same engineering permit review the city uses for a patio or driveway slab, with a site survey showing where the pad sits on the lot.

Is an AC pad permitted separately from a shed slab?

They're the same permit category, an engineering review for a slab on grade, though each pad is still submitted with its own location on the survey.

Why does Baldwin Park's history matter for a new slab there?

The neighborhood sits on the former Naval Training Center Orlando Main Base, closed in 1993 and redeveloped into residential lots, so a site visit checks whether a given lot has compacted engineered fill from that redevelopment rather than undisturbed native soil before a slab is priced.

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