What a free written estimate means here
Free means free. We do not charge for the visit, we do not charge for the measuring, and there is no charge if you decide not to hire us. You get a number, and you do what you want with it.
Written means written. A price shouted over the phone is a guess. What we hand you is a page with your name on it, your address, the work spelled out, and one number at the bottom. If you want to compare us against another concrete crew, you can lay the two pages side by side and see exactly where they differ.
That is the whole point of doing it this way. Concrete is one of the few things on a property you cannot easily redo. Getting the scope down on paper first is how you avoid an argument later, and it is how you find out whether two bids are actually pricing the same job.
Start with a ballpark before you call
You do not have to wait on us to start planning. The cost estimator on our homepage takes your dimensions and gives you an instant ballpark for the common jobs, so you can find out in about ten seconds whether a project is anywhere near your budget.
Installed ranges move around by project type, by thickness, by how much prep the site needs, and by the finish you want. As a planning range: concrete driveways generally run $8 to $12 per square foot installed, patios $9 to $14, and garage or shop slabs $8 to $12. Those are ballparks, not quotes. A flat, open, easy-access slab lands low in the range. A tear-out with hauling, a thickened edge, a slope that needs fill and compaction, or a stamped and colored finish lands high.
Rough numbers over the phone are fine too. Call 276-733-3750, tell us roughly how big and roughly what you want, and we will tell you the range we would expect to land in. We just will not pretend that is a quote. We measure on site before we put a real number on paper.
We come out and measure it ourselves
When we come out, we bring a tape and we walk the whole thing with you. Measuring is the easy part. What takes the time is everything around it.
We look at where the water goes, because a slab that sheds water toward a garage door is a problem you live with for thirty years. We look at the subgrade, since red clay holds water and soft or organic spots have to come out and get replaced with stone that will actually compact. We look at what the ready-mix truck can reach, and whether the pour needs our trailer line pump to snake hose through a gate or around a house to get the concrete where it is going. We check grade changes, existing edges we have to tie into, tree roots, buried lines, and the spot where a gravel drive meets what we are about to pour.
Then we talk options out loud, before anything gets written down. Thickness. Wire mesh or rebar. Broom finish or something decorative. Control joint layout, saw cut or tooled. Whether it makes sense to widen a drive now while the crew and the forms are already there instead of paying to mobilize twice. Some of those choices add money and some of them save it, and you should hear both sides before you pick.
What is actually in the written quote
Usually you have the written quote in a day or two. Sometimes it is faster. If we are waiting on a supplier for something unusual, we tell you that instead of going quiet on you.
The quote is not a one-line price. It says what we are doing, so there is no room for two different ideas about what was agreed to.
- Scope and dimensions: exactly what area we are pouring, in square feet, with the slab thickness called out.
- Site prep: excavation, tear-out and haul-off if there is old concrete, grading, and the stone base with compaction.
- Reinforcement: wire mesh or rebar sized to the job, plus thickened edges where the load calls for them.
- The mix: strength specified to the load, commonly a 4,000 PSI air-entrained mix built for Virginia freeze-thaw.
- Finish: broom, smooth, exposed, stamped or colored, along with the control joint plan and any sealer.
- Pumping: if the pour needs our line pump, it is built into the one price on our own work, not tacked on later.
- The number: one total, how payment is handled, and what the workmanship warranty covers.
No surprises on pour day
The written number is the real number. We are not looking for a reason to add to it once the crew is standing in your yard and the concrete is on the way.
There are two honest exceptions, and we say them up front instead of burying them in fine print. First, if you change the scope after the estimate, a wider drive, a thicker slab, stamped instead of broom, that changes the price and you approve it in writing before we order concrete. Second, if we open up the ground and find something nobody could see from the surface, a buried stump, a line running where it should not be, saturated soil that will not compact, we stop, we show you what we found, and we tell you what it costs to fix before we keep going.
That is the entire list. What does not move the number: the weather, our schedule, a truck running late, or us misjudging the yardage. Those are our problems to solve, not line items that show up on your bill.
Warranty terms live on the estimate
We put a workmanship warranty in writing, and the exact terms are confirmed on your written estimate. That way you are reading them before you sign, not hearing about them after something shows up.
We will also tell you plainly what concrete does no matter who pours it. Concrete cracks. Control joints exist to tell it where to crack, and a good joint layout keeps it in the lines instead of running across the middle of your patio. Fine hairline cracking at a joint is normal and is not a defect. Settlement over a subgrade we prepared, an edge that failed because it was too thin, a finish that came out wrong: those are ours, and the written terms say so.
What helps us quote it faster
You do not need to have anything ready before you call. But if you have these handy, we can usually get out sooner and turn the written quote around quicker.
Residential or commercial, the process is the same. A homeowner adding a back patio and a general contractor pricing a building pad both get the same site visit and the same written page.
- The address, so we can confirm you are inside our driving range out of Hillsville.
- Roughly what you want and roughly how big, even if it is paces instead of feet.
- Whether there is old concrete to tear out, and whether a truck can get close to the pour.
- A couple of phone photos of the area, especially the access and any slope.
- When you are hoping to pour, so we can be straight with you about the schedule.