Stamped concrete services in Round Rock TX - a patterned slab on a solid base

Stamped concrete in the Austin area usually costs about $10 to $20 per square foot, going by one national cost guide. That's the going rate around here, not our price. Where your job lands depends on the size, the pattern and colors, whether old concrete comes out first and how much base work the ground needs. I'll give you your own figure once I've seen the spot.

One installation guide calls color hardener the common choice for driveways because it builds a harder skin that stands up to traffic. The trade-off is that its color lives in the top layer, so a deep gouge shows gray underneath. Integral color runs through the whole slab, so a chip shows the same color, but it won't give you the deepest or brightest tones. If you go with hardener, ask how the crew spreads it, because uneven spreading leaves the color blotchy.

Reseal when the slab needs it, not on a set number of years. That's what industry guidance for stamped work advises. Plan the next coat when water and stains start soaking in instead of sitting on top, or when the color looks flatter than it did. A film-forming sealer is the most common choice on stamped work because it brings out the color. A penetrating sealer guards against water and stains, but most of them add no color.

If any part of the work reaches into the city's right-of-way, the public strip along the street where a driveway meets the road, Round Rock requires a Right-of-Way permit. Which office covers your address depends on whether you're inside city limits, in the ETJ just outside them, or in Williamson County. Call the city's building inspection office at 512-218-5550 and they'll tell you which applies. Before we set a date, we check which office covers you, and if a permit's needed we handle the application and keep it moving.

Any concrete can crack, so the goal is for it to crack in the joints and not across your pattern. Most bad cracks start underneath, with a base that was raked level instead of dug out and packed, so it settles with the dirt, and swelling clay makes that worse. Control joints are grooves cut into the slab so it cracks along a straight line. They only work if they go in on time, so we cut them as soon as the slab can take it.

Round Rock's driveway standards don't allow a driveway to take up more than 70 percent of your lot's street frontage. So a wide stamped driveway still has to stay inside that share. We lay out the width against your frontage before any forms go in, so it's settled well before the pour.