Concrete patio construction in Orinda CA - a slab that drains away from your house

Most folks who call me have a patch of yard that turns to mud every winter, or an old patio that's cracked, tipped on one side and holding water by the back door. The price mostly moves with the size, how much soil or old concrete has to come out and get hauled off, how steep the yard is and how easy it is to get material back there. The schedule turns on whether your job needs a permit and on the weather around pour day. I'll put your own numbers in a written estimate after I've walked the yard, including whether hauling the old concrete away is part of it.

A patio gets wet and gets walked on, so most of my attention goes to the ground under it and the grip on top. We dig out the topsoil and any soft spots, then pack the subgrade, which is the soil or gravel bed the slab sits on, and shape it so water runs away from your house instead of toward it. After that we set forms, try to pour early before the afternoon heat, finish the surface and keep the slab from drying out while it cures, the slow hardening that makes concrete strong. I usually steer folks toward a broom finish, a light brushed texture that keeps shoes from sliding when it's wet. If the budget has to give somewhere, I'd rather keep the base and go plainer on top, because like my dad used to say about fence posts, the part you can't see does the holding.

Patios usually connect to something else. If you'd like the surface to look like stone or brick, we do that through our stamped concrete services, and if you need a path from the driveway or side gate, our concrete sidewalk building work lets us pour it so the walk and patio meet at the same height and shed water the same way.

Building permits for Orinda come from the Contra Costa County Building Department, and the county requires one before anyone builds, alters or repairs a building or structure. Whether your patio falls under that depends on the job, so I check with the right office before we start rather than guess, and when a permit is needed we pull it as your contractor and handle the paperwork and inspection calls for our part. The city also requires a grading permit when a project digs out 50 cubic yards or more, among other earthwork conditions. In that case the grading plans have to come from a qualified professional and be approved by the project's soils engineer, and we build from those plans and stay in touch with the engineer. If a creek runs near your yard, work inside the creek setback needs its own Exception Permit from the city, which is good to know before you settle on where the patio goes.

Size can bring in one more rule. A project that creates or replaces 2,500 square feet or more of hard surface water can't soak through has to include at least one runoff feature, such as rain barrels, runoff onto planted areas or permeable pavement. Most yards we see around here slope one way or another, so we plan where the water goes before anything else, and we meet the same hillside backyards on jobs in Moraga and Lafayette. We're based in Orinda and work on both sides of the hills, so if your city isn't on our list, call anyway.