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Concrete Driveway

If you're building your new home, concrete drives are usually covered in your home builder purchase agreement. However, the added price for a concrete driveway in your home builder package is usually more expensive and made from poor materials.

Sometimes they are sub-contracted to driveway companies like us at an added premium.

Concrete Curbs  

Concrete curbs are both practical and decorative.  They give your landscaping a touch of class as well as making the yard maintenance easier.  Concrete curbing can be plain to blend into your landscaping or it can be quite decorative and become part of  the focal point of your yard.

Almost all residential homes in Portland and the surrounding suburbs utilize concrete as the preferred material for driveways. When deciding to install your new drive, here are the 3 factors to help you build the perfect drive for your home:

1. Durability

When it comes to building your driveway, you want to choose a material that is durable and can stand the test of time. Concrete is a great option as the average useful life of a new concrete drive can last up to 35 years.

With proper care and maintenance, your concrete drive can remain in excellent condition for as many as 50 years (and even more).

One of the major advantages or concrete is that it doesn't change its structure in high temperatures, especially during our hotttest summers. In fact, concrete remains relatively cool and is an ideal choice for Portland homes.

Additionally, Ohio concrete drives and pavements provide effective barriers to termites. The durability of the driveway structure depends not only on the quality of the concrete material itself, but also on the way in which it is laid.

Concrete expands and contracts with changes in outdoor temperature and humidity. This may lead to cracks overtime. Cracks need to be wider than 3 mm to provide passage to other areas of your home. To prevent these cracks, our professional concrete builders typically lay large square concrete slabs with joints between them. This also helps regulate the process of curing (hardening and strengthening).

To assist with durability, we  seal  our concrete drives to maintain its structure. This also helps prevent staining, protect the color, if any, and eliminate the risk of slipping on surfaces that have a slight slope.

2. Aesthetics

Classic concrete drives are flat and smooth making it a perfect match for homes with modern architecture. At the same time, this material can be “styled” in more ways than one.

At Concrete Experts Portland , our clients like to give their home entrance a touch of style by opting to color their driveway. There is an endless selection of colors and shades to choose from, you can go for earthly colors or something more dramatic to suit the style and design of your house.

Our Portland Concrete can also be stamped or stencilled which gives your driveway a more creative design and style. Your driveway can look as if it is made from stone, brick or even tile. We do this by providing stencil patterns and added individual decorative motifs.

3. Maintenance

If you want your concrete drive to last, there will be some maintenance with regular cleaning. You simply need to scrub your driveway with a brush and remove the dirt by spraying water with a garden hose.

When you have your driveway properly sealed, any oil stains coming from your car should easily come off with a simply spray.

Overall, having a concrete driveway can add functionality, aesthetic appeal and great value to your home.

If you want your driveway to stay in perfect shape for decades, seek out qualified driveway specialists who have extensive experience with concrete.

In addition to asking about labor and material estimates, you should check how long it will take for the concrete to cure so that you can get a rough idea or when you will be able to start using your new driveway.

So it's time, time to replace the original driveway or maybe just install a new concrete driveway. Where do you start? What are the best materials for your new concrete driveway? 

The first thing to consider when starting a new concrete project is cost, so it's important to address this right away. For a patio, sidewalk / walkway the actual concrete mix is ​​typically 4,000 PSI (pounds per square inch) is used for heavy traffic pavement, or heavy use floor slabs not as much or a concern as with a driveway. This is simply because the driveway is going to get a great deal more use than a traditional patio or walkway would.

Along with getting more use, heavier objects are placed on drives for long periods of time. So it is very important that you look for a high-performance concrete mix. The cost of high-performance concrete mix is ​​definitely a little more expensive per square foot, but looking at the project from the big picture perspective, it makes sense to spend a few dollars more for the high-performance concrete mix as it will eliminate a great deal of expenses and crack repairs in the future. It is important to consider only products that will help you pour a sustainable driveway that is less permeable than a typical mix.

So with that being said, here is what we use on our traditional residential concrete drives:

If you are getting a bid for your concrete driveway from Concrete Experts Portland , you can rest assured that all of our concrete driveway estimates include the above. What is most important is that as you obtain estimates for your new driveway or replacement driveway, you will want to make certain that any estimate you receive details what is all included in the proposal from that concrete contractor.

It is all too common that we see estimates from our competitors that do not include rebar or perhaps does not include tear out. There is nothing wrong with those estimates, it is just not comprehensive. So it is important that you compare "oranges to oranges" when shopping for a new concrete driveway.

When you request an estimate from construction companies in Portland OR , you can rest assured that all the details of the project will be spelled out in the project notes as well as the comprehensive estimate that you will receive. This is exactly why most estimates include an onsite inspection from one of our "field estimators" so that we can give you a very solid estimate from the beginning.

Initially at the beginning inception of Concrete Experts Portland , we asked our general contractors and residential customers what the biggest problem was in dealing with Portland area concrete contractors. The answer came back the same every time, it was:

Not getting a call back or estimate in a timely manner
Estimates never seem entirely complete, meaning that final project costs seemed to always come in higher than what was originally estimated.

Concrete Experts Portland is focused on providing comprehensive and final estimates upfront. This means that Concrete Experts Portland will provide a final estimate one time unless the project has too many variables which can happen from time to time. In those rare cases, an initial estimate is given with the disclaimer that the final project cost can possibly increase depending on variables within that project. This is oftentimes due to weather (ie winter conditions) and other uncontrollable aspects of the job.