Concrete sidewalk building in Peoria IL - a walk that drains away from your house

Most people call because one slab has tipped up at a joint, a section by the street has broken into chunks, or the walk to the front door finally got bad enough that a guest caught a toe on it. The price mostly turns on how much walk there is, how much old concrete has to come out and get hauled off, how easy the spot is to reach, and whether the job also includes concrete steps or a curb ramp. The schedule turns on the city's permit steps when the walk is public, then the weather and the curing time, which is the stretch where new concrete sits undisturbed and gains strength before you put weight on it. When I come out to measure, the estimate puts a number on your walk so you're not guessing.

On a walk along the street, the job starts with the city, so we line up whatever it asks for, inspection included, before the pour, and I'm glad to show you the paperwork. On site, I check where the water runs first, because a walk that tips toward your house sends every rain at your foundation. We break out and haul off the old slabs, then dig out and prepare the ground, which I watch closely because once concrete is down you can't see or fix what's under it. We set the forms and pour in the cooler part of the day, since concrete that cooks in midday heat can end up with a weak, dusty top. Then we give it a broom finish, a light dragged texture that keeps shoes from slipping when it's wet, and cut control joints, grooves that give the concrete a planned place to crack, early enough to do their job. Concrete cracks, and I won't pretend otherwise, but the joints decide where, so you get a neat line in a groove instead of a jagged one across the middle of a slab.

Sidewalk jobs often come with a neighbor project. If your walk ties into the garage and that slab is in rough shape too, it's worth pricing garage floor concrete at the same visit, and if you'd like the front walk to be more than a plain gray strip, decorative concrete is worth a look.

If your sidewalk runs along the street, it sits in the public right-of-way, the strip the city controls, and building or replacing it needs approval from the City of Peoria Public Works Department plus an inspection before any concrete goes in. The city only issues those permits to contractors it has licensed for right-of-way work, a license that takes proof of a $10,000 bond, so it's fair to ask anyone bidding your walk about it. Curb ramps have to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act standards, and when the walk is part of a new house, its permits come through the building permit instead. You shouldn't have to chase any of that, which is why we sort out what the city wants for your address before a date goes on the calendar.

On the ground, Peoria walks mostly fight water and winter. Older streets have big trees whose roots heave slabs, sloped yards send runoff straight across a walk, and months of freezing, thawing and salt chew up any surface that wasn't built for it, so I plan the slope and the joints around what I see on your lot. We run into the same lifted slabs and steep yards on jobs in Peoria Heights and East Peoria, and we work across the cities around Peoria, out toward Bloomington and Normal.