How to Choose a Concrete Contractor in Cedar Rapids, IA

What we call ourselves and what the other names mean

Concrete contractor, concrete company, flatwork contractor and slab contractor all describe the same thing for most homeowners. We pour and finish concrete for driveways, garage floors, basement slabs, sidewalks and similar flat surfaces. Foundations and load-bearing structural concrete are a related trade, and this page is about the flatwork around your house.

If your project is a driveway, a garage floor or a patio, flatwork is the work we do.

How we scope a job before we give you a number

We start with what is there now and what you want. For a driveway or slab, that means measuring it, looking at the condition of any existing concrete, checking the grades and drainage, and asking what will drive or park on it. Much of the housing here dates to around 1973, so many of the jobs we see are replacements. On those we decide on site whether the old slab can stay or has to come out before anything new goes in.

The ground here is sandy and drains quickly, so standing water under a slab is less of a worry than it would be on heavy clay. We still check the grades, because water running toward the slab or the house causes problems no matter what the soil does.

We also look at access. A concrete truck needs room to get close, and if it can't reach the whole area, the extra labor to move the concrete goes into the price. Access can change the labor, so the firm number waits until we have walked the site, though a ballpark for your type of job is fair game on the first call.

What goes into the price and how we write it down

Our written quote lists the work in pieces: site prep, removal of any old concrete, forms and stakes, rebar reinforcement, the concrete, finishing, and the contraction joints. You can see what each part covers.

Driveway installation typically runs $8 to $20 per square foot. The spread is wide because thickness, reinforcement, how much old concrete has to come out, and the finish you pick all move the number. A plain broom-finished driveway costs less than one with a steel-troweled surface, and that difference shows up as its own line.

Most of the money goes into prep, forming, reinforcement and labor, not the concrete itself. Cutting any of those steps is how a slab ends up cracked after a few winters.

How the pour and finish go

Once the concrete is placed, we screed it level, then bull-float it to knock down high and low spots and push the coarse aggregate below the surface. Then we wait. When the surface moisture sheen disappears, we float the concrete again. After that we either steel-trowel it for a smooth finish or broom it for texture. On a driveway or walk, broom texture is usually the better choice because it gives you traction.

Concrete cracks as it cures and as it goes through our hard winter freezes, so we decide where it cracks. We tool or saw-cut contraction joints into the slab. On a 4-inch driveway slab, joints go no more than 10 feet apart and are cut to about one-quarter of the slab thickness, so about an inch deep. The rebar inside the slab helps hold the pieces together on either side of those joints.

What to have ready when you call

The most useful things to tell us are the rough dimensions if you know them, what the current surface looks like, and what you want the finished job to do. Photos help, especially of drainage trouble or visible damage.

If you already have another quote in hand, show it to us. We will walk through ours line by line and explain what each part covers. A quote that covers only the concrete delivery and skips prep, reinforcement, finishing and joints leaves those costs for later, and we can show you which of those lines yours is missing.

Call us or use the form on the site. We will set a time to look at the property and send you a written quote.