Concrete Contractors in Bloomington, IN

Concrete Contractors Bloomington builds and fixes the concrete around Bloomington homes: driveways, patios, stamped surfaces, sidewalks and front steps, garage and shed slabs, and slabs that have cracked or sunk. Bloomington, Indiana asks a lot of outdoor concrete. Per Wikipedia's climate table, January's daily mean is 28.8 degrees, yearly precipitation at 49.38 inches spread over about 123 days, and snowfall at 17.5 inches. Put plenty of water together with plenty of nights below freezing and you get slabs that are tested every winter. We plan each pour for that.

Freeze, thaw and salt

Concrete is porous, so rain and snowmelt work into it. Water swells by roughly nine percent as it turns to ice, and each freeze pushes on the paste around it. After enough cycles the top layer lets go in thin flakes (scaling) and hairline cracks open up. Chloride de-icers add to the damage by keeping the surface wet and raising the number of cycles. The defense is built into the order and the finishing: an air-entrained mix, whose microscopic voids act as relief chambers for ice; no extra water added at the truck; a surface that is not overworked; a real cure; and, where salt will land, a penetrating sealer once the slab is ready. Miss one of those and the surface ages fast.

Limestone ground

Bloomington sits on karst: irregular limestone with sinks, ravines, caves and underground streams. The area is famous for it. Indiana limestone has been quarried between Bloomington and Bedford for generations. For a homeowner, karst matters because soil can slowly wash into openings in the rock, and that can leave voids under slabs. A 1984 Purdue and Indiana highway research report on southern Indiana karst described exactly that kind of subsidence. Most driveways never see it. But it is one reason we dig out soft spots, compact the base in layers and look closely at any slab that has dropped before we just pour new concrete on the same ground.

Older homes, older concrete

Bloomington's houses span more than a century. A Point2Homes summary of American Community Survey data gives a median build year of 1985, puts 12.2% of homes at 1939 or earlier, and shows each decade from the 1950s through the 1980s adding between 7% and 13.2% of today's stock. Plenty of those houses still sit behind their original drive or a front walk with years of patches on it. Older flatwork was often thin, had no steel and predates routine air entrainment, so surface patches on it seldom hold. The newer subdivisions bring a different issue: slabs placed quickly with joints spaced too far apart, which crack in their first few winters.

The sidewalk rule most homeowners miss

Under Bloomington Municipal Code section 12.04.010, property owners are responsible for keeping the sidewalks next to their property in good repair. When the city sends a sidewalk notification letter, it asks for the repair to be finished within 90 days of the postmark. The city also runs a Sidewalk Repair Assistance Program for some owner-occupied single-family homes in Community Development Block Grant areas. If you got a letter, call us early so the work fits inside the window, and ask the city's Street Department whether you qualify for help.

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Included on every job

• An on-site visit to measure and to check slope, drainage, roots and how the truck gets in
• A written estimate with each part of the work priced on its own line
• Breaking out and hauling off old concrete when it has to go
• Digging out soft soil, then a compacted crushed-stone base graded away from the house
• Forms, steel sized for the load, and an air-entrained mix on outdoor slabs
• Joints laid out ahead of time so shrinkage cracks follow them
• Your pick of broom, smooth, exposed aggregate, color or a stamped pattern
• A proper cure, and sealer once the slab is ready for it

What drives the price

Area, depth, how hard the site is to reach and the finish you choose set most of the cost. For a rough national yardstick, HomeGuide's cost guides list driveways at about $6 to $15 per square foot, plain patios at $4 to $12 and new sidewalks at $7 to $17. Tear-out, regrading, a 6-inch slab, rebar and decorative work push those numbers up. Each service page below has a fuller table from the matching HomeGuide guide. The number that counts is the written price we give you after seeing the site.

Picking a pour date

We place concrete through most of the year, but the calendar changes the plan. Mild spring and fall weather is the easiest on a fresh slab. In July and August we start at first light so the surface does not dry before it is finished. Late in the year, a slab needs enough mild days to gain strength before hard freezes arrive, and insulated blankets go on when the nights turn cold. If waiting a few weeks would give you a better slab, we will say so.

Bloomington is where most of our work happens, from the older blocks around Prospect Hill and Vinegar Hill to the subdivisions on the edges of town. We also cover Ellettsville, Stinesville, Unionville, Smithville-Sanders, Clear Creek and Harrodsburg in Monroe County; Bedford, Oolitic, Mitchell and Heltonville in Lawrence County; Owen County's Spencer and Gosport; Morgan County's Martinsville, Paragon and Morgantown; Nashville, Helmsburg and Bean Blossom in Brown County; and Bloomfield, Solsberry and Worthington in Greene County. The work shifts with the setting. Inside Bloomington, public sidewalks and driveway aprons fall under city right-of-way rules. Out in the hills around Lake Monroe and Lake Lemon, lots are bigger and steeper, so long drives, pole barn floors and patios that need a planned path for water are typical work.