Concrete driveway building in Tacoma WA - a slab on firm, packed ground

Most people call when the old driveway has cracked across the middle, sunk at one corner or started holding puddles by the garage, and by then patching usually doesn't hold for long. The price mostly turns on the size of the driveway, how much old paving and dirt we haul out, how much work the ground needs and the finish you pick, while the schedule turns on the weather and the curing wait before you can park on it again. I come out, look at it and give you a written estimate with your own figure, so you can take your time deciding.

We start by breaking out the old driveway and digging down to the subgrade, the soil your new slab will sit on, and we check which way water runs so the finished driveway sheds it away from your house and garage. Then we spend real time compacting that ground before any forms go up, because a driveway carries weight every day and loose dirt under it settles and takes the concrete down with it. Once the concrete is placed and finished, we give it a broom finish, a light texture that gives tires and shoes some grip in the rain, and cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a planned place to crack instead of a random one. After the pour we keep the new slab damp while it cures, the days it spends gaining strength, rather than leaving it to dry out in the sun and wind. If something has to come out of the budget, I'd cut the fancy finish before I'd cut the base, because nobody sees the base on day one but it decides whether the driveway stays flat.

Driveway jobs often grow a little once people see the forms out, so if the slab out back is in the same shape, we can plan concrete patio construction while our crew is already set up. If you'd like the driveway to look like stone, brick or slate, our stamped concrete services press a pattern and color into the fresh surface, though on a steep driveway I usually steer people toward a broom finish for the grip.

Tacoma has stormwater rules that can reach a driveway job, because they cover the whole project, including dug-up ground and any new or replaced hard surface on your property or in the right-of-way, the strip along the street the city controls, plus utility cuts that go with the work. Which of the city's requirements apply depends on the project's size, its type and the first creek, lake or bay its runoff reaches, and not all of them apply to every project. Where they do apply, the job keeps erosion and sediment controls in place while we work and uses ways to soak in, spread out or hold rainwater on your lot where that's feasible without causing flooding or erosion. Before work starts, we check which office covers your address and what it will want to see, so you know where you stand before the forms go up.

We're based in Tacoma and work in the cities around it in Pierce County and south King County, and a lot of our driveway calls come from older houses with narrow or sloped driveways, or ones where water already runs toward the garage. We see the same kinds of driveways on jobs in Lakewood and University Place. Cool, wet months shape the plan too, since industry guidance says placed concrete should stay above 50°F, so in cooler weeks we talk through the pour date and how the slab will be kept warm enough when I'm out for the estimate.