Concrete flatwork in Cokato and Wright County

What we pour

Most of our concrete work falls into a handful of jobs, and each one has its own page with the details. The short version of each is here so you can find the right one.

• Driveways: broom-finished, four inches for cars and thicker where trucks and trailers park, with aprons at the road and curves where the lot calls for them.
• Patios: poured slabs off the back of the house, pitched away from the foundation, plain broom or stamped, often with a paver border or a fire pit set into them.
• Pool decks: broom-finished for bare feet, pitched away from the pool wall, with coping, an expansion joint, and paver soldier-course borders.
• Garage and shop slabs: thickened edges, vapor barrier where it belongs, floor drains, and coordination with in-floor heat tubing.
• Steps and stoops: poured concrete, paver, or boulder steps, on frost footings when they attach to the house, with risers that match.
• Stamped and decorative: wood plank, stone, and slate patterns with integral or broadcast color, sealed after cure.
• Pads and slabs for sheds, saunas, hot tubs, and equipment, and sidewalks along buildings.

Why concrete fails in Wright County, and what we do about it

Concrete does not crack because it is weak. It cracks because the ground under it moves, water gets where it should not, or nobody told it where to crack. Around Cokato the ground is glacial till, clay-heavy soil that holds water and swells when it freezes. The county builds footings to a 42-inch frost depth for a reason: the frost goes deep here, and a slab sitting on wet clay rides up and down with it every winter. We deal with that in four places.

• Base. We strip the topsoil and any soft clay, then bring in a granular base, usually class 5 gravel, and compact it in lifts with a plate compactor. A slab on compacted gravel drains and moves a lot less than a slab on the dirt that was there. On bad soil we dig deeper and add more base rather than pour over the problem.
• Frost. Open flatwork does not sit on 42-inch footings, but anything attached to the house does. Steps against a foundation, stoops, and slabs that carry a post get footings or piers to frost depth so they stop heaving away from the door. For a floating slab, the answer to frost is drainage: a base that does not hold water has less in it to freeze.
• Water. Every slab we pour is pitched, usually about an eighth to a quarter inch per foot, so water runs off the surface and away from the house or the pool. Downspouts get extended past the slab. Where the yard sends water at the concrete, we grade or add drain tile before the pour, not after.
• Control joints. Concrete shrinks as it cures and it is going to crack. We saw-cut joints into the slab, usually the day after the pour, at spacing that matches the thickness, so it cracks along a straight line we chose instead of a jagged one it chose. Joints go at inside corners and around columns too, because that is where cracks start.

The mix, the cure, and the first winter

Exterior concrete in Minnesota needs an air-entrained mix. Tiny air bubbles in the concrete give freezing water somewhere to expand, and without them the surface pops and scales after a couple of winters. We order it that way for every outdoor pour. Curing matters as much. Concrete gets its strength from water reacting with cement over weeks, so we keep it damp or apply a cure-and-seal compound rather than letting a hot June afternoon dry it out. Stay off it on foot for a day, keep cars off a driveway for about a week, and expect it to keep gaining strength for a month. The first winter, skip the deicing salt. Sand for traction is fine. Salt on concrete that is under a year old is the fastest way we know to scale a new surface.

Finish options: broom, stamped, exposed aggregate, colored, sealed

The finish is decided before the truck shows up, because it changes the crew, the tools, and the timing of the pour. These are the five we do.

• Broom finish. The standard for driveways, walks, and pool decks. A stiff broom is dragged across the surface after floating, leaving fine lines that give traction when wet. Least expensive, most forgiving, easiest to repair.
• Stamped. Color goes into or onto the concrete, then rubber mats press a pattern in before it sets: wood plank, flagstone, slate, cobble. Looks like the material it copies from a few feet away. Costs more and needs sealing every two to three years.
• Exposed aggregate. The top layer of cement paste is washed off before it hardens to reveal the stone in the mix. Good traction, a natural look, hides dirt well. Rougher on bare feet than broom.
• Colored. Integral color mixed into the truck for a solid tone through the whole slab, or a broadcast hardener worked into the surface. Colored concrete can be broomed or stamped.
• Sealed. A penetrating or film-forming sealer applied after cure. Slows salt and water damage, deepens color, and is required on stamped work. Reapplied every few years.

What drives the cost of concrete flatwork

We quote each job from a site visit, and these are the things that move the number up or down.

• Square footage, and the shape. A long narrow walk costs more per foot than a square slab because of the forming.
• Thickness and reinforcing. A four-inch slab with fiber is the floor; six inches with rebar for trucks or equipment is a different pour.
• What has to come out first. Tearing out an old driveway or patio and hauling it away is real work before any concrete arrives.
• Base conditions. Soft clay or an old fill hole means more excavation and more gravel.
• Access for the truck. If the ready-mix truck can back up to the forms, we chute it. If it cannot, we wheelbarrow or pump, and that adds labor.
• Finish. Broom is the baseline. Stamped, exposed aggregate, and color each add material and crew time.
• Drainage and grading work around the slab, and anything on footings such as steps or stoops.

How it goes

1. 1

   Call or send the form

   Tell us what you want poured and where. We will ask about access, what is there now, and how you plan to use it.

2. 2

   Site visit

   We measure, check the grade and where water goes, look at the soil, and figure out where the truck can get to. Finish samples come along if you are deciding between broom, stamped, or exposed aggregate.

3. 3

   Written quote

   You get a quote that lists thickness, reinforcing, base, finish, and joints, so you can compare it line by line with anyone else's.

4. 4

   Excavate, form, pour, cut, clean up

   We strip and excavate, build and compact the base, set forms and rebar, pour and finish, saw-cut the joints, and haul away our mess. We tell you when you can walk and drive on it.