Concrete driveways, walks, steps and slabs
Flatwork is its own trade and we have been doing it alongside the brick for decades — driveways, public walks, porches, steps, garage and shed slabs, plus the cutting and removal to get the old one out.
What we pour
- Driveways — replacements, extensions and widenings
- Sidewalks and public walks — including the city walk and apron sections
- Porches and stoops — often alongside brick porch repair
- Steps and stairs — the thing that gets used every day and cracks first
- Slabs — garages, sheds, patios and equipment pads
- Cutting and removal — clean saw cuts and haul-away of what is there
Why Chicago concrete cracks
Everything under a slab here moves. Our ground freezes deep and heaves, and clay soil swells and shrinks with how wet the year has been. A slab poured on ground that was not prepared, or poured too thin for what is going to drive on it, will crack in its first or second winter no matter how good the finish looked in September.
Most of the work in a driveway that lasts happens before any concrete arrives: getting the base right, getting the depth right for the load, and getting the fall right so water runs off the slab and away from the house rather than pooling on it or against your foundation.
Drainage, and where the water ends up
A driveway that drains toward the house is a masonry problem waiting to happen. Water pooling against a foundation wall goes into the brick, and then you are calling us about mortar instead of concrete.
Because we do both trades we look at where the water goes as a matter of course. A new walk that dumps runoff onto a porch pier is not a job finished well, however good the surface looks.
Repair, replace, or leave it
A hairline crack in an otherwise sound slab is cosmetic and we will tell you to leave it. A slab that has broken into sections that move independently, or has sunk enough to hold water or trip someone, is past patching and wants replacing.
We would rather come out, look, and tell you it has five years left in it than sell you a pour you do not need this year.
Get a concrete price
Estimates are free and there is no obligation attached to one. Tell us what you are seeing and we will tell you what it actually needs.