Flat concrete for Town 'n' Country

Block ranch houses and thin old driveways

Most of Town 'n' Country went up as tract subdivisions of single story block houses, stucco outside, flat lots, wide streets with a car pad and a walk to the front door. The concrete that came with those houses was poured thin, the way builder concrete usually is, because it was part of a package price on a house that had to be finished by a deadline. It has held up longer than anyone expected. When it finally goes, it goes all at once, usually along the wheel tracks.

The ground under it is sand. Sand moves. Drive a loaded truck over a patch that was never compacted properly and the slab bridges the soft spot until it cannot, and then you get a crack running corner to corner. So the part of this job that decides how long it lasts happens before any concrete arrives: strip the old material out, cut the base to grade, compact it in lifts, and wet it down so it is tight instead of fluffy. Nobody sees that part. It is the whole job.

The other half is joints. Concrete cracks, that is what it does as it dries and as it moves with the heat, and the only choice you get is where. Cut joints in the right places and the cracks hide in them. Skip them and the slab picks its own line, usually across the middle of the drive where you look at it every day. Around here the live oaks add a second problem, because a root under an apron will lift a panel by itself, and that panel has to come out rather than get patched.

• Old slab broken out and hauled away
• Sand subgrade cut to grade and compacted
• Fall set so water runs off the slab
• Control joints cut where the crack should go
• Edges, apron and walk tie-ins formed square

Where the water goes on a flat lot

This side of the county is flat and low, and it drains slowly. Rocky Creek and Sweetwater Creek wander through the middle of it, the bay sits at the western edge behind Bay Crest Park, and the water table is close enough to the surface that a hole dug in the afternoon can have water standing in it by morning. A summer storm drops more rain in an hour than the sand can take, and it sits on the yard looking for somewhere to go.

So a slab out here gets a fall on it before anything else is decided. Away from the block wall, out toward the drive or the swale, enough that a hose test runs clean off the edge instead of pooling in the middle. On a patio or a pad that meets the house, that usually means a step down at the door so rain coming off the roof cannot track back inside. One customer wrote about that part of the job: "Even ensured step downs so water doesn't seep in!" It is not extra. It is the difference between a slab and a shallow pond.

Water that has nowhere to go finds the sand under your concrete. It runs along the edge of the slab, carries fine sand out with it storm after storm, and leaves a void nobody can see. The slab sits over that void until a truck or a trailer parks on it, and then a corner drops. That is why a sunken apron at the street usually is not a concrete problem at all, it is a drainage problem that has been eating the base for years. Fix the water first, then pour.

The jobs that come up out here

The calls from this part of the county fall into a few shapes. A carport slab or a patio that has to grow because the family did. A driveway widened so two cars stop parking on the grass. Footings for an addition or a block wall along a property line. A sidewalk section out front that has cracked and lifted enough to catch a toe. We do all of it, plus the demolition and haul off that comes first, and paver work where somebody wants that look instead of a broom finish.

Summer here decides how the day runs. Concrete sets faster in heat, and a slab finished in the middle of a July afternoon leaves a crew a short window to get it flat, which is how you end up with a surface that looks burned and dusts off a year later. That is why the day starts at 6:00 AM, Monday through Saturday. Flatwork gets poured and floated before the sun is on it, and the afternoon goes to forms, base work and tear out.

Jose does the estimate himself and breaks the price down, so you can see what the base work costs against what the concrete costs. That matters most on a repair, because some of these jobs turn out smaller than the homeowner feared, and some need more base than anyone wanted to hear. The Google rating sits at 4.8 from 23 reviews, and pricing and work quality are the two things people bring up most often in them. Nothing gets buried in a lump sum.

Getting a price in Town 'n' Country

Call (813) 812-1892 or send the form on this page, and tell us what is there now and what you want instead. Photos help, and the listing takes online estimates, so measurements and a couple of pictures are often enough to get moving before anyone drives out. The estimate is free and it comes to you in writing, with the demolition, the base work, the pour and the finish written out separately so nothing turns up later as a surprise. Phones are on Monday to Saturday, 6:00 AM to 5:00 PM, closed Sunday.