Stamped concrete services in Tacoma WA - a stone look you can keep sealed

Most people who call us have a plain gray patio that's cracked and tired, or a new project and a picture of a stone look they saw somewhere, and the smart question is what it'll take to keep up as well as to build. The price moves mostly with the size of the area and how much is going on in the design, and the schedule turns on the weather more than anything, because stamping needs a decent day to go down right. If you're still deciding between plain and stamped, our page on concrete patio construction covers the slab that sits under either one. I'll measure and write up your number at the estimate, so you know where you stand before anything gets dug.

It starts at the estimate, where I help you pick a pattern and color you'll be happy to reseal over the years, because a design that's a chore to keep up stops looking good fast. Our crew digs out and packs the base, the gravel layer the slab sits on, since a base that's only raked level settles with the dirt under it, and then we set the forms and the rebar, the steel inside that keeps cracks from spreading apart. We pour, work the color in, and press the stamping mats firmly and evenly so the pattern comes through clean from one edge to the other. Then we cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the concrete a place to crack where it won't show, and let it cure, the wait while it hardens, before we seal it. Stamped concrete should be kept out of hard heat, wind and rain while it cures, so if the forecast turns bad on install day, we'd rather move the date than stamp in poor weather. And when a budget gets tight, I'll tell you plainly to trim the pattern before the base, because nobody sees the base on day one, but the whole slab rests on it once we've packed up.

Stamped work usually sits next to something plain. A stamped patio often meets a front walk, and if that walk is cracked or uneven we can pour a new one with a broom finish, the brushed texture that keeps feet from slipping, through our concrete sidewalk building work so the two line up. In the garage a pattern isn't usually what you want, so we pour that slab plain under garage floor concrete, and it's easy to book alongside a stamped walk or patio.

If your stamped driveway or walk runs past your property line into the right-of-way, the strip along the street, the city issues a right-of-way construction permit for that kind of driveway, sidewalk and curb work through Tacoma Permits. Most of those permits go only to someone who has met the city's bonding requirements, though in some cases the city issues them to the property owner without that. Before any work starts, I check which office covers your address and what it will want to see, and when a job calls for a permit we handle the paperwork, or if it's one you have to get yourself, I tell you what to bring.

The other thing to plan around is the wet coastal weather we get around Puget Sound, which calls for more attention to sealing and drainage on decorative concrete. So at the estimate I look at where water runs off your roof and yard, and we pitch the slab to carry it away from the house instead of letting it pool on the pattern. We plan for the same rain on jobs in Lakewood and University Place.