Concrete Floor Installation in Orinda CA - a solid floor ready for what goes on top

Usually you're here because an old floor has cracked, sunk or let moisture ruin the flooring on top of it, or because a new room is sitting on bare ground waiting for a slab. The price moves with the size and thickness of the floor, how much steel goes in it, whether old concrete has to be broken out and hauled off, and how easy it is to get a truck or pump to the spot. The schedule mostly turns on the permit and the city's review before we start, then the wait while the slab cures before flooring goes down. Your written estimate lays out what's included for your floor, and if it's a garage you're after, our garage floor concrete page covers that job.

I start by asking what's going on top of the floor, because that shapes how we set up the moisture barrier, the sheet under the slab that keeps ground moisture from coming up into your flooring. Then we dig out the soft dirt and pack the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, since a base that's only raked level settles later and takes the floor down with it. We lay the barrier, set the rebar, the steel inside the slab that holds it together and keeps fine cracks tight, and I'll be straight with you that a slab can show a few fine cracks, so I'll show you how we're reinforcing yours before the pour. We'd rather pour in the cooler part of the day than in the midday heat, because a top that dries too fast ends up weak and dusty. Once it's finished flat, we cut control joints, shallow saw lines that give the concrete a place to crack where we chose, and keep the slab covered while it cures, the slow hardening that gives it strength. If the budget gets tight, spend it on the base and not on anything you'll see on pour day, because like we said on the farm, a feed pad's only as good as the dirt under it.

A floor is often one piece of a bigger project. When a new room sits above the yard, we can pour concrete steps at the door while we're there, and if the room opens toward the pool, we build concrete pool decks with the same attention to the base and where the water runs.

Under Orinda's building permit rules, permits are issued by the Contra Costa County Building Department, and the city requires one before anyone erects, constructs, alters or repairs any building or structure. Some work sits on an exempt list, so we check with the right office about your job before we start rather than guess, and when your floor needs a permit, we pull it as your contractor and handle the paperwork and inspection calls for our part of the work. Every project that needs a building permit also goes through the city Planning Department for a zoning review unless it's on the exempt list. Larger remodels, including any valued at $50,000 or more, have to send a required share of their demolition debris to an approved recycling facility, which comes up when we're breaking out an old floor.

A lot of houses here sit on hillsides with steep driveways and tight side yards, so I look hard at how a truck or pump reaches the room before we plan the pour. We're based in Orinda and see the same narrow access on jobs in Moraga and Lafayette, along with cities all around us on both sides of the hills.