Concrete cutting and coring: which one does my job need?
Coring if something round goes through the concrete, cutting if the opening is a line or a rectangle. A pipe, duct or conduit through a slab or wall is a core drill job. A drain trench, a door through a block wall or a stair opening is a saw job. Most commercial work in the Jackson metro needs both on the same slab, and the cheapest way to buy it is one crew, one visit, one layout.
What is the difference between concrete cutting and coring?
Cutting uses a diamond blade to make a straight kerf; coring uses a hollow diamond bit to remove a round plug. A flat saw rides on the slab and cuts trenches, openings and sections. A wall saw runs on a track bolted to a vertical surface and cuts door and window openings. A core rig anchors to the floor or wall and drills a hole from one to fourteen inches across, straight through rebar and welded wire mesh, and pulls out an intact cylinder of concrete. Both run wet. The water keeps the diamonds cool and keeps respirable silica out of the air, which is why the OSHA construction silica standard lists water fed saws and drills as the baseline control for this trade. A crew cutting dry indoors is a red flag before the first foot is priced.
The core drilling and slab and wall sawing pages go deep on each method. This page is about choosing between them, and about the jobs that need both.
Which one does my job need?
Look at what goes through the concrete and the table answers it. Round things get cored, lines and rectangles get sawed, and the price column comes off the published rate sheet.
| What you need | Method | What you get | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pipe, conduit or duct through a slab or wall | Core drilling | Round hole sized to the sleeve, 1 to 14 inches, no corner cracks | $300 to $500 single, $600 to $1,500 for a batch of 4 to 10 |
| Floor sink, cleanout or stack penetration | Core drilling | Clean round opening the plumber seals around | Batch pricing when several land in one visit |
| New drain or grease line run inside the slab | Slab sawing (trench) | Two parallel cuts, slab broken out between, pipe laid, repoured | $6 to $12 per linear foot; typical interior trench $800 to $2,500 |
| Conduit slot for power or data | Slot cutting | Narrow shallow saw cut the conduit drops into | $8 to $15 per linear foot |
| Door or window through a block or poured wall | Wall sawing | Track mounted saw, square corners finished by hand | $1,500 to $3,500 per standard opening |
| Stair, elevator or equipment pit opening in a floor | Slab sawing (opening) | Rectangle cut to the drawing, section lifted out | Per foot plus rigging when sections are heavy |
| Anchor bolts, lift posts, rack feet | Core drilling | Shallow cores or drilled holes at the layout marks | Priced by the hole, batch rate applies |
| Sidewalk panel, curb or ADA ramp prep | Slab sawing | Square cuts so the new pour has clean edges | $250 to $900 per cut set |
When does one job need both cutting and coring?
Any time a trade is moving plumbing or power inside an existing building, which is most of the commercial work in this metro. A dental clinic relocating its operatories on Lakeland Drive needs a sawed trench for the new drain run and a batch of cores for every supply, vent and conduit stub. A restaurant taking a retail pad needs the grease interceptor trench cut and the floor sinks and stacks cored. A warehouse adding a mezzanine needs cores for the column anchors and a sawed opening for the stair. The concrete cutting and coring in Flowood page covers the tenant buildout version of this in detail, because Flowood produces more of it than anywhere else we work.
Buying the two from one crew matters more than people expect. The setup is paid once. The layout is confirmed once, by the same person who will drill it. The slurry is recovered once. And the schedule has one name on it instead of two, which is the thing a general contractor actually cares about when the plumber is standing there waiting. Here is how a combined visit runs.
- 1
List every penetration by what goes through it
Pipe sizes, duct sizes, conduit count, door widths. The thing going through the concrete decides the method, not the other way around.
- 2
Mark the layout on the slab
The plumber or electrician marks it; we confirm against the drawing before the first hole. On a tenant buildout this step prevents the only truly expensive mistake, the core in the wrong spot.
- 3
Scan where the slab has history
Post-tension decks, radiant floors and slabs with old trenches get a ground penetrating radar pass first, $400 to $800 pass-through on the sheet.
- 4
Core first, then saw
Cores go in at the marks, then the trench or opening is sawed, so the saw never crosses a hole that is already there and the slurry from the long cut gets recovered once.
- 5
Hand the slab to the next trade
Holes sleeved or taped, trench broken out and swept, sections rigged and gone. The plumber or GC starts the same day or the next morning.
How much does concrete cutting and coring cost together?
Add the lines. A typical clinic buildout with a 30 foot drain trench and eight cores prices as a trench in the $800 to $2,500 band plus a core batch in the $600 to $1,500 band, with the occupied-site line, $150 to $400, when the suite next door is seeing patients. A reinforced dock slab or a post-tension parking deck moves each line toward its top and adds a scan. Those are the published numbers, and the written quote for a specific slab comes back off them once we see the marked layout and a thickness. Every slab is different, so the figure for yours is a photo and a layout away, not a line on this page. The rebar article explains what the steel inside the slab does to both methods.
Who should not call a cutting and coring crew
Anyone who needs a slab removed whole, graded and repoured: that is a concrete contractor, and cutting is the first hour of his job, not ours. A homeowner who needs one hole for a dryer vent through a block wall is better served by a handyman with a rented core bit than by a mobilization minimum. And a structural opening in a suspended slab or a load bearing wall needs an engineer's drawing before anyone cuts; we will cut to it, and we will not guess at it.
Cutting and coring questions, answered straight
Can you core a hole bigger than 14 inches?
Up to about 14 inches is a core bit. Past that, a round opening is usually sawed as a square and the corners finished, or a wire saw takes it if the section is massive. Tell us the duct or sleeve size and the method falls out of it.
Is coring or cutting cheaper for a run of pipe penetrations?
Coring, almost always. A line of 4 inch drains through a slab is a core batch, $600 to $1,500 for 4 to 10 holes in one visit. Sawing a trench to lay the pipe in is the choice only when the pipe has to run horizontally inside the slab, and then the trench is priced by the foot.
Do both methods make the same mess?
Both run wet, so both make slurry and neither makes much dust when done right. Cores make a small amount of slurry at each hole; a long trench cut makes a lot more and needs vacuum recovery on an occupied site. Dry cutting indoors is a silica problem and a sign of the wrong crew.
Do I need separate crews for cutting and coring?
No. The same crew carries core rigs and flat saws on the truck, and the setup is paid once. Splitting the two across companies costs a second mobilization and a layout handoff where mistakes happen.
Price the cuts and the cores on one quote
Send the marked layout or a list of what goes through the slab, a photo and a thickness if you have one. The written number comes back off the public sheet with each method on its own line. Or call (601) 488-2960.