Somewhere along the way, precast concrete footings got labeled as an “alternative” method. A workaround for contractors who want to cut corners. That narrative is wrong. Dead wrong. And in 2026, it’s costing the people who still believe it thousands of dollars per job.
EZ-PIER and EZ-TUBE aren’t a shortcut. They’re a smarter system. And when you stack them up against the old-school pour-in-place method tube by tube, bag by bag, hour by hour. The numbers tell a story that’s impossible to ignore.
The True Cost of "Traditional" Pour In Place Footings (Spoiler: It's More Than You Think)
Walk into any lumber yard and you’ll find everything you need to pour a poured-in-place pier. You’ll also find a receipt that grows fast and a schedule that grinds to a halt which isn’t taking your crew’s time and labor into account.
Here’s what going the poured-in-place route actually costs you, priced from real retail shelves right now:
The Shopping List (Per Pier, 12″ Diameter, 4 ft. Deep)
Item | Current Price |
Quik-Tube 12″ × 48″ form | ~$15.48–$21.98 |
Quikrete 80 lb. concrete mix (×8-9 bags needed) | $6.47/bag → ~$51.76- $58.23 |
Bigfoot BF24 bell footing form | $26.38 |
Total materials per pier | ~$94–$107 |
And that’s before you’ve factored in the real killers: labor, cure time, and return trips.
For a 12-pier project, a standard deck or shed foundation, you’re looking at $1,120–$1,280 in materials alone before a single shovel hits the dirt. And you haven’t even started talking about ready-mix concrete. If your job scale pushes you to call a truck? Budget $160–$180 per yard, plus short-load fees that can run $100–$200 more when your order doesn’t fill the drum. But materials are almost besides the point.
The Real Drain: What Poured-In-Place Steals From You
The problem with the traditional method isn’t just what you spend at the register. It’s everything that happens on the job site.
Here’s the sequence that kills your schedule:
- Trip 1: Haul forms, mix, bags, a mixer, rebar, and stakes to the job site. Set tubes. Mix and pour concrete — a messy, labor-heavy process that takes your crew 1.5 to 2 hours per pier.
- The Gap: Wait 24–48 hours for concrete to cure. Your crew goes home. The job sits. Follow-on trades sit. Your cash flow sits.
- Trip 2: Return to remove forms, check the work, and then — finally — start framing.
With a typical burdened labor rate of $50–$90/hour in today’s market, that 2-hour-per-pier install time is costing you $100–$180 per pier, per trip. On 12 piers, you’re burning 18–24 total labor hours before the first board goes up.
Cure time isn’t downtime. It’s overhead. Fuel. Equipment idle. Management hours. And in bad weather? A single rain event or overnight freeze can ruin a pour which forces expensive tear-outs, heating blankets, or a complete restart.
Flip the Script with EZ-PIER & EZ-TUBE. Dig. Set. Backfill. Build.
Now here’s the same 12-pier project done the EZ-CRETE way.
EZ-PIER and EZ-TUBE arrive at the job site ready to work. There are no forms to assemble, no bags to mix, no water to measure, no cure window to wait on. Your crew drops them in, backfills, and keeps moving.
The EZ-CRETE sequence:
- Excavate (same as always).
- Set the EZ-PIER or EZ-TUBE in the hole. It goes in plumb, it stays plumb.
- Done.
- Start framing. The same day.
Install time drops from 2 hours per pier to 45 minutes per pier. That’s not a rounding difference. That’s a structural shift in how your crew spends its time.
The Math: Side-by-Side on 12 Piers
Metric | Poured-In-Place | EZ-PIER / EZ-TUBE |
Install time per pier | 1.5–2 hours | ~45 minutes |
Total labor hours (12 piers) | 18–24 hours | ~9 hours |
Direct labor cost ($70/hr avg.) | $1,260–$1,680 | ~$630 |
Return trips required | Often 2 | Zero |
Cure time delay | 24–48 hours | None |
Same-day framing possible? | No | Yes |
*Note on Labor Rates: All cost calculations are based on an industry-average burdened labor rate of $70/hour (falling within the typical $50–$90/hr range for skilled trade labor). Actual savings may vary depending on your local crew rates and region.
Bottom line on labor alone: ~55% savings. That’s not an estimate. That’s the math.
What Those Hours Are Really Worth
Let’s think bigger than a single job.
A contractor installing 100 piers per year using the traditional method burns roughly 150–200+ hours when you factor in mixing, clean-up, and return trips to strip forms, time they didn’t have to lose. At a $70 burdened rate, that’s $10,500–$14,000 in labor walking out the door annually — for a process that’s slower, weather-dependent, and requires your best people to do work a precast product already did for them at the plant.
Those hours aren’t just lost time. They’re:
- Jobs not bid because the crew is stuck waiting on cure.
- Profit margins squeezed by a second site visit.
- Client relationships strained when the schedule slips because of a rain delay on Day One.
Weather Doesn't Care About Your Schedule. EZ-PIER Does.
Here’s a factor that doesn’t show up in any cost spreadsheet until it’s too late: weather risk.
A traditional pour requires the right conditions. Too cold? Concrete won’t cure properly without expensive protection measures. Too wet? Your pour gets compromised before it sets. A surprise frost can crack fresh concrete overnight, sending you back to square one, and sending your client an explanation they didn’t want to hear.
EZ-PIER and EZ-TUBE are precast in a controlled plant environment. The curing already happened, perfectly, consistently, every unit. Install them in rain. Install them in cold. The precast concrete product doesn’t care.
The Language of #BetterBuilding
There’s a reason we say this isn’t an alternative method. It’s a better method.
“Alternative” implies compromise. It implies that somewhere, there’s a “standard” way that should take precedence. But when your “standard” method requires two trips, 24 hours of waiting, weather anxiety, heavy mixing labor, and a dumpster full of spent fiber tubes — that’s not a standard worth protecting.
EZ-PIER and EZ-TUBE aren’t for contractors who want to do less. They’re for contractors who want to do more! More piers per day, more jobs per season, more margin per project, more capacity to grow.
That’s not an alternative. That’s an upgrade.
For Distributors: You're Not Selling a Product. You're Selling a Competitive Advantage.
If you’re carrying EZ-PIER and EZ-TUBE, you’re not competing on a bag-of-mix price war. You’re solving your customers’ biggest problem: labor.
A single-SKU precast solution eliminates the shelf space and complexity of stocking Sonotubes, bagged mix, bell forms, and accessories separately. Your yard loads faster, your customers leave faster, and the ROI sells itself the moment they do the math.
The contractor who switches to precast doesn’t switch back. Once they’ve framed the same day they set footings, mixing concrete by hand feels like a punishment.
Ready to Build Smarter?
Here’s the simplest way to see it. Materials costs between poured-in-place and precast? Closer than you’d think. Labor and time? It’s not even a contest.
Method | Materials | Labor | Total | 12-Pier |
Pour in Place | ~$103 | ~$105–$175 | ~$208–$278 | ~$2,500–$3,340 |
Pour in Place | ~$81 | ~$88–$140 | ~$169–$221 | ~$2,027–$2,657 |
EZ-TUBE | ~$192 | ~$46–$60 | ~$238–$252 | ~$2,856–$3,024 |
EZ-PIER | ~$130 | ~$46–$60 | ~$176–$190 | ~$2,106–$2,274 |
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✓ Materials costs are in the same ballpark. Zero mixing. Zero curing. Zero return trips. That’s where precast wins — every time. | ||||
The materials line is where contractors get fooled. They see bags of mix at $6–$9 each and think they’re saving money. They’re not — they’re just moving the cost from the receipt to the payroll. Look at the all-in per-pier totals: EZ-PIER lands at ~$176–$190. Mix-your-own comes in at ~$208–$278. Ready-mix delivery looks cheaper on materials — until the short-load fee hits. At just 2.26 cubic yards for a 12-pier job, you’re well under the 5-yard minimum every time, and that $150 fee gets averaged right back into your cost. Either way, the materials gap is smaller than most contractors assume. The labor gap is not.
Materials costs are in the same ballpark. Zero mixing, zero curing, zero return trips — that’s where precast wins every time.
*Mix-your-own: 9 bags Quikrete 80 lb. @$6.47 + Quik-Tube 12″×48″ @$18.73 avg. + Bigfoot BF24 @$26.38 = ~$103/pier. Concrete volume from EZ-PIER spec weight (750 lbs ÷ 4,000 lbs/yd³ = 0.188 yd³). Retail pricing Lowes.com & HomeDepot.com, June 2026.
**Ready-mix: 3 yd³ @$170/yd avg. + $150 short-load fee (12 piers = 2.26 yd³, under 5-yd minimum) + BF24 @$26.38/pier = ~$81/pier avg. Pour-in-place uses EZ-PIER volume (0.188 yd³) as conservative baseline. Labor: $70/hr burdened.
100 piers. Up to $14,000+ in labor recovered annually. Zero cure delays. Zero return trips. Zero pours ruined by a weather window.
The numbers aren’t subtle. The choice isn’t close.