Concrete Contractor in Hornsby Bend - Driveways and Slabs Built for Heavy Rain

If your address is outside city limits, usually yes, because Travis County Development Services issues development permits there for driveways as well as buildings and septic systems. The county's Basic Development Permit covers most changes to land outside city limits, and its Permit Desk at (512) 854-4215 can tell you what your job needs. Before we set a date, we check which office covers your address, and when a permit's needed, we handle the application and keep it moving.

Look it up on the county's Jurisdiction Web Map, which you'll find through Travis County's home permit page, and it shows which city and county your property falls in. That answer decides whose permit rules apply to your slab, so it's worth knowing before you collect bids.

Outside city limits, Travis County requires a new house or duplex to follow the International Residential Code edition the county adopted, or the version Austin uses inside its city limits. A builder's work on a county home permit also gets at least three inspections by a licensed third-party inspector, and the first one is at the foundation. We plan our slab foundation building so the forms, the base and the rebar, the steel bars that hold the slab together, are ready for that inspection before a truck is called.

Your price comes from four things: the size, the thickness, how much ground work the base needs and the finish. A long run from the road, tearing out an old slab, tight access for the truck or grading to move water away all add to it. A broom finish, the light brushed texture that gives tires and shoes grip, costs less than stamped or decorative work, and when the county requires a permit, its fee is part of the total. I'll measure it on site and give you your number before you decide anything.

You can usually walk on new concrete in a day or two and drive on it after about a week. That wait is curing, the stretch where the concrete hardens and gains strength, and cars on it too early can mark or crack the surface. Rain in the forecast can push the pour date, and we'd rather move it than pour into a storm.

Concrete shrinks as it cures, so a new slab will crack somewhere, and control joints, the shallow lines we cut across it, decide where. The cracks people hate usually come from joints cut late or skipped, a base that wasn't packed, or a pour that dried too fast in the afternoon heat. We cut joints on time, pack the base and pour early in the day, so the cracks that do show up mostly land in the lines we picked.