Concrete Contractor in Sierra Madre - Driveways and Patios Built From the Ground Up

Ask the city's Building and Safety Division, which issues permits for work that alters a structure and lists property line walls among that work, but doesn't name driveways or patios. The city also has separate encroachment and excavation, grading and drainage, and tree removal permits, and each trade needs its own permit, since there's no all-in-one permit. We check what your job needs from the city before we schedule anything, then tell you who's handling each piece.

Yes. The city requires a business license for companies based elsewhere that work inside city limits, and a contractor has to hold one before applying for any construction permit. That includes us, since we're based in Duarte, so it's part of what we check before a job here goes on the calendar.

A contractor needs a state license when the job needs a building permit, uses workers, or costs $1,000 or more in labor and materials. The state licensing board only lets someone skip it when there's no permit, no employees, no advertising as licensed and a cost under $1,000, all at once, and a crew pouring your driveway is employee labor. In Sierra Madre, building permits go only to a state-licensed contractor or the property owner, so ask to see the license. We're fully licensed and insured.

The price comes down to size, what has to come out first and how much work the ground under it needs, and I can't give you a fair number until I've seen it. The slope, how close a truck can get to the pour, the finish and any permit work the city asks for move it too. If the budget's tight, spend it on the base and keep the finish plain, because a fancy surface on bad ground cracks just as fast as a plain one.

Most cracking and sinking starts under the slab, with dirt that was raked level instead of dug out and packed, or water running underneath until the base goes soft. On a sloped lot that water has plenty of room to run, so we set the grade to carry it off before we pour. Concrete is going to crack somewhere, so we cut control joints, shallow grooves that tell it where, early enough that the cracks land in the lines instead of across the middle.

You'll be walking on it well before you can drive on it, and I'll tell you the day for each before we pour. The wait is curing, the stretch where concrete hardens and gains strength, and driving on it early can crack a slab that would have been fine. Tearing out the old driveway and any city permit work come before the pour, and that's usually the part of the schedule that moves.