Concrete Driveways in Gastonia, NC

Concrete driveways work harder than any other slab on a Gastonia lot. Every car, delivery van and trash truck rolls over them, roof and street water drain across them, and on many lots they climb from the curb to the garage. We break out and replace worn driveways, pour new ones for new houses and garages, and add width or a side parking pad to drives that have become too tight.

What goes wrong underneath

In the Piedmont, a failing driveway usually starts with the ground. Red clay swells when it soaks up rain and shrinks in dry spells. Pour concrete on clay that was never packed and the panels drop, crack across and tip at the joints. Around Gastonia's older houses there is often no stone under the slab at all, and street trees have shoved up the sections nearest the road. No sealer or patch will hold up a slab that has lost the ground beneath it.

When patching is no longer enough

• Cracks a tire can drop into, or wide enough to sprout weeds
• Panels that have sunk or tipped, leaving a ridge to trip on
• Rain that sits in puddles or drains toward the garage door
• Large areas of flaking, scaling or crumbling surface
• Sections raised by roots near the street
• A drive too skinny for two cars to sit side by side

Our build sequence

First the old slab is broken out and trucked away. Soft soil and anything organic gets dug out, the subgrade is packed, and crushed stone goes down in layers, each one compacted. HomeGuide's driveway guide calls for at least 4 inches of concrete for everyday cars and 5 to 6 inches where RVs or heavy vehicles park, with the edges thickened. We size the depth to your vehicles, place rebar where loads call for it, and set the forms to drain toward the street or a drain rather than toward the house.

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Placing and finishing

For outdoor slabs we order air-entrained concrete. The mix carries millions of microscopic air pockets, and freezing water expands into those pockets instead of popping the surface. After the concrete is placed and leveled, a broom texture goes on so tires and shoes grip in the rain. Joints are spaced to give shrinkage cracks a planned path, and an isolation joint separates the drive from the garage slab, steps and walks so each can shift without damaging the others.

Where the drive meets the street

The apron is the final stretch of driveway inside the public right-of-way. Inside Gastonia, the city issues driveway permits for that piece, and anyone working in city right-of-way has to meet its minimum insurance requirements. On NCDOT streets, a commercial apron also needs a state permit. We find out what your address requires before a pour date is set.

The first months after the pour

• Give it roughly a week before cars, and more time before heavy trucks
• Keep dumpsters, trailers and equipment away from the edges
• Apply sealer once it has cured, and redo it every few years
• Aim gutters and downspouts so they do not empty onto the slab
• Seal small cracks early, before water reaches the base