Home base is Hillsville, and we travel from there
We are based in Woodlawn, just outside Hillsville in Carroll County. That is where the trucks load in the morning and where they come back at the end of the day. From there we work a radius of roughly one hour to an hour and a half in any direction. That covers a good stretch of southwest Virginia and reaches across the state line into North Carolina.
The radius is a practical number, not a hard fence. It is the distance our crew can drive, set up, place concrete, finish it right and still get the tools washed out at a decent hour. Concrete runs on its own clock. Once the ready-mix truck rolls, the pour is happening, so we plan the drive around the batch schedule and get on site before the first load does.
Carroll, Grayson and the home ground
Carroll and Grayson counties are home ground. We are in and out of Hillsville and Woodlawn constantly, and we run over to Galax and Independence on a regular basis. If you are anywhere in those two counties, you are well inside our range, and we can usually get out to look at a job quickly.
Work here looks the way the county looks. Long gravel lanes, red clay that turns to soup after a wet week, building sites cut into a slope, and old driveways that have been patched more than once. We form for the ground we are actually standing on, we spec strength to the load, commonly a 4,000 PSI air-entrained mix built for Virginia freeze-thaw, and we pour it right the first time.
Driveways, patios and walkways, garage and shop slabs, footers, poured walls, sidewalks and steps, and tear-out and replacement all get handled by the same crew, whether the address is five minutes away or fifty.
West along I-81 and up through the New River Valley
Head west and we cover Wytheville and the Wythe County countryside, and we will run on out toward Marion when the job makes sense. Straight up the interstate corridor we work Pulaski, Radford, Christiansburg and Blacksburg, which is the heart of the New River Valley and a steady part of our week.
East of home we take work in Floyd and on the ridges around it, and we go on into the Roanoke Valley and Roanoke itself. A run up US-221 or over on I-81 is a normal morning for this crew. Distance changes the start time. It does not change the standard of the work.
If your address sits out between two of those towns, on a state route or up a county road with no neighbors in sight, that is fine. Most of what we pour is not in town.
- Carroll County: Hillsville, Woodlawn and the communities around them
- Grayson County: Independence, Galax and the farms along the river
- Wythe County: Wytheville and on west toward Marion
- Pulaski and Montgomery counties: Pulaski, Radford, Christiansburg and Blacksburg
- Floyd County and on down into the Roanoke Valley
- Across the line into Mount Airy and Surry County, North Carolina
Across the North Carolina line
The state line is a short run down US-52 from Hillsville, so the North Carolina side is normal territory for us rather than a special trip. We take work in Mount Airy and around Surry County, and the drive is short enough that it does not change how a pour gets scheduled.
Concrete does not care which side of the line it sits on, but weather and soil shift a little as you come off the Blue Ridge. We spec the mix and prep the base for the site we are pouring on, not for an average.
Estimates work the same on either side of the line. We come out, measure, talk through the options and hand you a clear written quote, usually within a day or two.
Both crews travel: the pouring crew and the line pump
Two things leave the shop when a job is on. The pouring crew, which forms, places and finishes. And our trailer line pump, which travels with an operator and a hose guy. They cover the same territory. There is no smaller radius for the pump and no separate zone for the finish work.
The pump is a trailer-mounted line pump running 2.5 inch and 3 inch hose. It is not a boom. That matters on the road, because a trailer pump follows us down a narrow lane and up a gravel drive where a big boom pump would have to stop out at the road and set up. Other companies bring a boom, and there are jobs that call for one. Ours is built for hose work.
Most crews rent a pump when they need one. We own ours. On our own pours that means the pumping is built into one price instead of showing up as a separate outfit on your job, and it means the pump gets there when we say it will. When another contractor needs concrete moved, we are not handing over the machine. We bring our pump and our operator and we do the pumping for you.
Mountain sites, farm lanes and tight access
A level lot with a paved approach is the easy version. Most of what we see is not that. Sloped building sites, soft ground after a wet week, a gravel road with a hard turn at the top, a septic field nobody should drive across, a fenced backyard with one gate. That is ordinary work here, not an exception.
The line pump is how we get concrete to places a mixer truck cannot reach. We snake hose through a gate, around the house, down a bank or into a basement, and the concrete gets placed where it belongs instead of hauled a hundred feet by wheelbarrow. The 2.5 inch and 3 inch line suits everything from footings to big flatwork pours.
A pump usually makes sense when the pour is a foundation, when it is roughly eight cubic yards or more, or when the truck simply cannot get close. We will tell you on the estimate visit whether your site calls for one, and you will see it on the written quote either way.
- Long or steep gravel drives where a loaded truck has no business going
- Backyard patios and slabs sitting behind a fence or the house itself
- Basement floors and garage slabs with no straight shot for a chute
- Farm and barn slabs out past the house and the yard
- Footers and foundations on cut and fill mountain lots
Winter, weather and how we plan the drive
Winter up here is real. Elevation changes fast across this country, and a road that is clear in Galax can be slick coming over a ridge toward Floyd. We pour through the cold months, but cold weather pours get planned instead of squeezed in. We watch the overnight lows, the ground temperature and the forecast for the days right after the pour, because fresh concrete needs time and warmth to gain strength.
If the weather is going to hurt the finished product, we say so and we move the date. Pushing a pour costs you a few days. A slab placed on frozen ground can cost you the slab. We would rather be straight with you about the calendar than hand you something that scales or cracks its first spring.
The same goes for the drive itself. If the mountain roads are bad, the ready-mix trucks are not running either, and nobody is pouring that morning. You will get a phone call rather than a long wait in the yard.