Concrete Contractor in Nederland, TX - Driveways and Slabs Built on Solid Ground

The price comes down to the size of the slab, how much old concrete has to come out and how much work the ground needs before we pour. Thickness, rebar and the finish move it too, from a plain broom finish, the light brushed texture that keeps it from getting slick, up to stamped patterns. If the budget's tight, I'd cut the fancy finish before I'd cut the base, because nobody sees the base on day one and nobody can fix it once it's covered.

Most of the time it's the subgrade, the dirt the slab sits on, because it was raked smooth instead of dug out and packed, so it settles and the slab goes down with it. Water running under the edges, a pour in the middle of a hot day and joints cut late or skipped make it worse. We pack the base, check where the water goes and cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a straight line to crack along, while the concrete is still young, because no slab is crack-proof but you can choose where the cracks go.

You'll wait longer to drive on it than to walk on it, because curing, the slow hardening that gives concrete its strength, keeps going for days after the top looks dry. Keep the car on the street until the day we give you at the walkthrough, since a heavy tire on young concrete is how a new slab picks up early cracks.

Slope the slab away from the house so rain runs toward the yard or the street instead of under your foundation. On a flat Nederland lot that slope is small and easy to get wrong, so I check where the water goes before we set forms. If there's nowhere for it to go, we talk about that at the estimate, not after the pour.

Yes, the city has a storm water permit, and the application it posts with its other permit documents is the first step toward one. The city also keeps storm water rules in its code. Whether your driveway or patio needs that permit is the city's call, and I'd rather ask them than guess, so we check before your job starts.

Nederland works under the International Codes, including the building and residential codes, and the city adopts them with its own changes. You can see the editions it lists on the city's code page. If your job raises a code question I can't answer standing in your driveway, I'll tell you so and go find out.