Concrete Contractor in Pensacola, FL

It comes down to square footage, how thick the slab needs to be, how much prep the site needs and whether a truck can get close to the pour. Two driveways the same size can price differently if one needs the grade brought up or has a tight approach. We would rather measure it than guess, so estimates are free and there is no obligation.

For a brand new driveway, yes — a residential driveway permit is required, and the county or city will set the grade, decide whether a culvert is needed and inspect the finished work. Tearing out an existing driveway and replacing it in the same footprint does not need one. Permitting is handled by whichever authority maintains your street, so the office and the fee differ from address to address. Ask us when we come out and we will tell you which applies to yours.

Four inches is the normal thickness for a driveway carrying cars and light trucks. Six inches is the answer where an RV, a boat trailer or work trucks will be on it regularly. For mix strength, most residential driveways are poured at 3,000 to 3,500 PSI, and going to the upper end is cheap insurance in Florida. Heavy or daily commercial loads call for 4,000 PSI or more. We will tell you which your job needs rather than pouring the thinnest thing that passes.

Foot traffic after about 24 hours, and be careful — keep pets off it. Cars and light vehicles after seven days. Concrete keeps gaining strength for weeks after that and reaches the strength it was specified at around 28 days. Heavy vehicles and dumpsters should wait the full month.

Somewhere, eventually, yes. Concrete shrinks slightly as it cures and that movement has to go somewhere. The job of the contractor is not to promise it will never crack but to decide where: control joints are cut early, at the right depth and spacing, so the slab cracks along a straight line you barely notice instead of wandering across the middle. Fine hairline cracks are normal and cosmetic. Wide cracks, cracks with a lip you can feel, or cracks that keep opening are a different matter — if you see one, call us.

A great deal, and it is the main reason a pour here is scheduled differently than it would be up north. Heat makes concrete set faster, which shortens the window for finishing it properly, and it pulls water out of the surface before the slab underneath has caught up. That is what causes plastic shrinkage cracking and a dusty, crazed finish. Concrete placed much hotter than normal can also lose a meaningful share of its 28-day strength if it is not cured properly. The answers are practical ones: pour early in the day, wet the base down first, keep the finishing crew ahead of the set, and cure the slab deliberately instead of leaving it to the weather.

Rain in the first few hours after placement is the real problem — it can wash out the surface paste and leave a weak, dusty finish. Once concrete has taken its initial set, rain matters much less, and a light shower after that is close to harmless. In summer we watch the radar and start early, because an afternoon storm is close to a daily event on the Gulf Coast. If the forecast is genuinely bad we will move the pour rather than gamble with your slab.

It does. Salt in the air and in the ground works its way into concrete over time and attacks the steel inside it. When that steel corrodes it expands, and that is what lifts and spalls a slab from the inside. The defences are unglamorous: a dense, well-consolidated mix, enough concrete cover over the reinforcement, keeping the steel up on chairs so it sits where it was designed to sit, and sealing decorative surfaces. It matters more the closer you are to the water.

Stamped, stained and other decorative finishes should be sealed — the sealer is doing much of the work of keeping the colour and pattern looking new — and typically want redoing every two to three years depending on sun and traffic. A plain broom-finished driveway does not need sealing to survive, though it will stay cleaner and resist stains better if you do. What you should not do is seal a slab that is still curing, or put a film-forming sealer somewhere water is already trapped underneath.

Clear access for a concrete truck, which is a large and very heavy vehicle, and space to work around the pour. Move vehicles, and let us know where any irrigation lines, low-voltage lighting, septic components or invisible pet fencing run — those are not covered by a utility locate and we cannot see them. For the buried utilities themselves, Sunshine 811 is Florida’s free call-before-you-dig service and locates should be marked before anyone breaks ground. Beyond that, keep children and pets away from fresh concrete for the first day.