Concrete patio construction in Peoria IL - a slab that drains away from the house

Usually you're looking at an old patio that's cracked and tipped, or a patch of grass by the back door that turns to mud every time it rains. The price mostly moves with the size and shape of the slab, how much soft dirt or old concrete has to come out first, how easy it is to get into the back yard and whether you want a plain or decorative finish, and the schedule turns on the weather, what the city wants and the curing time. If the patio meets the house at a back door, it's a good time to look at the concrete steps too, and I'll work out your own figure when I come out to measure.

Most of a good patio is the ground under it, so that's where we start. We dig out the topsoil and any soft spots down to the subgrade, the firm soil the slab will sit on, pack the base hard and pitch it so rain runs off toward the yard instead of toward your house. Before the pour I walk you around the forms and show you where the control joints will go, the lines we cut into the slab so the cracks every slab tries to make happen in a straight line we chose instead of across the middle. We'd rather pour in the cool of the morning than at midday, because a slab that dries too fast in the sun can end up with a weak, dusty top, and then we broom the surface, cut the joints, let it cure and clean up. If the budget gets tight, the base is the last place I'd cut, because nobody sees it on day one, but a nice surface on soft dirt cracks and sinks just as fast and the only fix is tearing it out.

A patio usually ties into other work. If you want the look of stone or brick, our stamped concrete work presses a pattern and color into the slab while it's still soft. And if you're tired of walking through wet grass to get out there, a concrete sidewalk from the driveway or side gate is easy to plan alongside the patio, since it needs the same kind of ground prep.

Peoria's Development Center at City Hall issues the city's permits, and its permit list names jobs like adding a deck or building a larger storage shed but doesn't mention concrete patios, so whether yours needs one isn't settled until someone asks. Before we schedule, we look into what the city, or the village if you're outside Peoria, wants for your patio, file the paperwork when it's ours to file and tell you plainly if anything lands on your end. One more thing worth knowing when you pick a size is that the city's stormwater utility counts a patio as hard surface, the same as a roof or driveway, and bases its fee on that area at $5 per 1,000 square feet, so a bigger slab can nudge that bill up.

On jobs around town we see a lot of back yards that slope toward the house, and older yards where the patio spot is soft garden dirt or old fill, which is exactly why we dig out and pitch every slab. We run into the same sloped lots in Peoria Heights and East Peoria, and we work across the cities around Peoria out toward Bloomington and Normal, so if yours isn't listed, call and ask.