Concrete contractor in Piedmont, CA - driveways and walls built for sloped lots

Most Piedmont jobs we see start with a slope. Water runs down a driveway or walk on a hill and gets underneath it, and if the subgrade, the dirt and gravel the slab sits on, was only raked level instead of dug out and packed, it washes out and settles until the concrete cracks and drops. My dad used to say the part of a fence post you can't see is the part doing the work, and concrete's no different. So we dig to firm ground, pack the base, set the slope so water heads away from your house and cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a straight place to crack when it shrinks a little.

A lot of the concrete around older Piedmont houses has been patched more than once. We find steps pulled away from the porch, driveways with a seam where two pours never matched, and old walls with nothing behind them to let water out. We usually cut out the failed sections rather than pour a thin skin over them that'll lift again before long.

Piedmont's city government issues building permits for most construction projects and repairs, so on any concrete job here I assume the city is part of it, and I check with its planning and building department on your job before we dig. Most changes you can see above ground need design review first, and a large or complicated project can need approvals from the Planning Commission and City Council before it gets a permit. In Piedmont that paperwork usually sets the start date more than our crew's calendar does. We're licensed and fully insured, and you can look up any contractor's state licence with the Contractors State License Board before you sign.

The price here turns on the slope, how much old concrete comes out and gets hauled off, how deep we dig for a solid base and the finish you choose, and your written estimate spells out which of those it includes. The schedule also depends on getting a concrete truck up tight hillside streets and narrow driveways, so I work out how we'll reach the forms while I'm walking your lot. We pour in flatter places like Alameda too, and the base and drainage work is the same idea there, just with less hill fighting you.

Piedmont is a small city that's almost all homes, with Oakland on every side, and it's a short drive over the hill from our base in Orinda.

Many of the houses here are older and built into the hill, with garages down at the street, long runs of steps up to the front door and terraced yards held up by walls. So a job here is usually as much about holding the ground and moving water as it is about a smooth, flat slab, and that's what I look at first when I walk your lot.