Concrete Contractor in St. Marys, GA - Driveways and Slabs Set Up Right

You may, because the City of St. Marys requires a building permit before anyone builds a new building or other structure on a property, or does renovations, repairs or additions. Whether your slab, steps or wall counts is the city's call, so we find out which office covers your address before we schedule the work and take care of the permit paperwork when the job calls for one. You can also look up your property's past permits on the city's online records site before you plan anything new.

If your property is in the Historic District, the owner or an authorized representative has to attend a pre-consultation meeting, an early talk with the city's Community Development Department, before any work can begin. You can schedule it by calling 912-510-4032 or by selecting YES on the city's permit portal. Please mention it at the estimate, so that meeting comes before we set a pour date.

The permit holder or their authorized agent has to tell the building official when the work is ready for inspection. Work past each inspection point waits until the official approves it, and with concrete that matters, because nothing under a slab can be looked at once it's poured. When we handle the permit, we plan the pour around those approvals rather than ahead of them.

A driveway's cost here comes down to its size, its thickness and whether it carries rebar, steel rods laid inside to hold the slab together if it cracks, plus the tear-out and base work your lot needs. A plain broom finish, a light swept texture that gives tires and shoes grip, costs less than stamped or colored work, and a long drive the truck can't reach adds labor. I'll give you a written number once I've seen the lot.

You can usually walk on a new driveway well before you can drive on it, because the concrete keeps curing, slowly hardening and gaining strength, long after it looks dry. Heavy trucks wait the longest, and before we leave I'll tell you when walking, cars and anything heavier are fine on your slab.

Most concrete gets a few fine cracks as it dries and shrinks, so I'd rather tell you now than have it surprise you later. Control joints, the straight grooves we cut into the slab, give those cracks a place to happen in a line instead of across the middle, and they only work when they're cut on time. The wide cracks and sinking you see on old slabs usually trace back to the base, which is why we spend our time there and pour early in the day, so the top cures hard instead of drying out weak and dusty.