Concrete that stays flat in Bloomingdale

Oak roots under a Bloomingdale driveway

Bloomingdale went in as a set of subdivisions around the golf course, and the builders put live oaks along the streets and in the front yards. Those trees are big now. An oak root will follow the moisture under a slab, and the edge of a driveway holds moisture, so that is where roots go. Once the root thickens it has nowhere to move but up, and a driveway that was flat when it was poured now has a ridge across it and a crack running off the ridge.

Patching over a lifted slab is money thrown away. The root is still growing, and whatever you skim on top of it comes back up with the concrete. What has to happen is the broken section comes out, the root gets cut back and the subgrade gets rebuilt and compacted before anything is poured, otherwise the new panel goes the same way as the old one. Sometimes the tree is close enough that the honest answer is to move the joint or to thicken that section.

Sidewalk panels along these streets do the same thing, and a panel that has lifted is a trip hazard someone will eventually complain about. We take the panels out, deal with what is underneath, and put back sections that sit level with their neighbors. If the tree is staying, and most people want it to stay, we will tell you straight where the concrete is likely to move again instead of pretending the problem is gone for good.

• Roots cut back and the subgrade recompacted before any pour
• Broken panels taken out whole, never skimmed over
• Saw cut joints put where the slab wants to crack
• Fall set away from the house and the lanai
• Everything swept and washed down before we leave

Where the rain goes on a flat lot

Bloomingdale is flat and sandy, the lots drain to swales between the houses, and those swales run to the ponds on the golf course and eventually down to the Alafia. That system works right up until somebody pours concrete across it. A patio extension or a wider driveway laid without thinking about fall becomes a low dam, and the water that used to leave the yard now stands against a slab or backs up toward the door of the house.

Our summer rain does not arrive politely. An afternoon storm can drop more water in a few minutes than the sand can take, and everything that lands on the roof and the driveway has to go somewhere in a hurry. So before we pour anything we walk the lot and find where the water is already going, then set the forms so the new concrete keeps sending it that way. Grade first, concrete second. Getting that backwards is how a good looking patio floods a lanai.

Step downs matter too. Where a slab meets a doorway the concrete wants to sit below the threshold with fall running away from it, because level with the threshold means the first hard rain finds its way inside. One customer put it this way: "Did a great job on my concrete pad for my barn! Even ensured step downs so water doesn't seep in!" The same thinking applies to a lanai slab or a shed pad on any of these lots.

Pool decks and lanais on block homes

Most of what stands out here is concrete block with stucco over it, sitting on a slab poured straight on the sand. There is no crawl space and no basement, so the slab is the house, and anything we pour against it has to be treated as a separate piece of concrete that happens to touch it. A patio extension bonded hard to a house slab will drag on it as the ground moves, and the crack shows up where you least want it, right at the wall.

Screen enclosures are everywhere in these neighborhoods, and the aluminum uprights anchor into the edge of the pool deck. If that edge is thin, or if it was poured on ground nobody compacted, the anchors work loose and the frame starts to rack. When we pour a deck that is going to carry a cage, the perimeter gets thickened and the fill under it gets compacted in layers, because fixing it afterward means cutting concrete out from under a structure that is already standing.

The original driveways and walks on these streets have had a long run, and a lot of them are coming due at the same time. Some of it is cosmetic, hairline stuff you can live with. Some of it is a panel that has broken its back and rocks under a car, and that one is not going to improve. We will look at both and tell you which is which, and if pavers or block suit the job better than a poured slab, we do that work too.

Getting a price in Bloomingdale

Call (813) 812-1892 and Jose will come out to look at the job, then put a free estimate in writing with the work broken down so you can see what each part costs. There is a form on this page as well if you would rather send photos and a note about what you are trying to do. The crew works from 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Saturday and is closed Sunday, and the early start is deliberate in a Bloomingdale summer, because the good concrete hours are the ones before the storms come through. The rating is 4.8 across 23 Google reviews.