Line Cost. New flooring: install 2,500 sq.ft. of mid-grade 5/8 x 4-1/2 wide vinyl plank flooring and 500 linear feet of matching baseboard. $2.49. per sq.ft.
The drying shrinkage of concrete is analogous to the mechanism of drying of timber specimen. The loss of free water contained in hardened concrete, does not result in any appreciable dimension change. It is the loss of water held in gel pores that causes the change in the volume.
A more serious problem, plastic shrinkage cracks, can happen when moisture evaporates from the slab while the concrete is still plastic - that is, wet and workable. This typically happens on a windy day, leaving short, parallel cracks (6 inches to 3 feet long) at right angles to the wind.