Concrete Contractor in Garden Grove - Driveways and Patios Built for Flat Lots

The city's Building & Safety Division makes that call, and its list of common examples of work that needs a permit doesn't name driveways or patios, so it's worth asking for your address. That list does name building or altering a structure, pool and spa work and masonry fences over 36 inches high. Before we set a date, we check with the city, and if a permit is needed we handle the application, build the review time into the schedule and tell you up front.

You can get it yourself or have your contractor get it as your authorized agent, and the city advises having the contractor do it when a contractor is doing the work. That's how we handle it. We plan the start date with care, because a city permit expires if work doesn't begin within 180 days of being issued, or if it stops for 180 days after the last recorded progress.

The city allows construction between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Monday through Friday and between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays, with no work on Sundays or federal holidays. That early weekday start suits us, because we like to pour in the cooler morning, since a slab poured in midday heat can end up with a weak, dusty top. It also means your neighbors won't hear our mixer truck at dawn.

The Contractors State License Board caps the down payment on home improvement projects at $1,000 or 10 percent of the total contract price, whichever is less. The board licenses and regulates contractors across California, and we're fully licensed and insured. Garden Grove also has its own business license paperwork for contractors based in other cities who work there, so it's a fair thing to ask anyone you're thinking of hiring.

The size, the tear-out and the finish set most of the price, and you'll get your own figure once I've measured and looked at the ground. Breaking out and hauling an old slab, fixing a soft base, pouring thicker for heavy trucks and adding rebar, the steel grid that keeps cracks from spreading apart, all add cost, while a plain broom finish, the light texture that gives shoes and tires grip, costs less than stamped or colored work. You're without the driveway for the tear-out, the pour and the curing, the wait while concrete hardens enough to take a car, and a permit review, if there is one, can move the start date. Our concrete driveway page has more on the job.

Give the slab a steady fall away from the house and plan where the water goes once it leaves the edge, because on flat Garden Grove lots it won't run off on its own. Before we pour, we check where water runs across your yard now and set the forms so it heads to a lawn, a planter or a drain instead of your foundation. Some properties in the city also fall under flood-area development requirements, which the city's building handouts cover, so we ask about that when we check your address.