Concrete Contractor in Waukegan, IL

Why concrete fails here, and what we do about it

Lake County sits on clay that holds water instead of draining it, and the freeze-thaw cycle here runs from November into March. Add the salt that goes down after every storm and you have the three things that kill concrete. Slabs that survive are air-entrained, poured on a compacted stone base, pitched so water leaves, jointed on a proper grid, and kept off salt through their first winter.

• Freeze-thaw scaling. Water gets into the surface, freezes and lifts the top layer off in flakes. It comes from too much water in the mix, finishing while bleed water is still on the slab, or skipping the air entrainment exterior concrete needs here.
• Road salt damage. De-icing salt accelerates surface scaling badly. New concrete should not see salt through its first winter and should be sealed before the second.
• Slabs poured on clay. Most cracked driveways in this county went down on disturbed clay with no compacted stone under them. Clay holds water, water freezes, the slab lifts.
• Control joints cut late or shallow. Concrete is going to crack. Joints decide where. Cut at the wrong depth or a day late and the slab picks its own line across the middle.
• Water pitched toward the house. A patio or walk sloping the wrong way puts water against the foundation every time it rains and freezes there in January.
• Settled and heaved sections. Where the slab is sound but has dropped, lifting or a single section replacement costs a fraction of a full tear-out.

Every one of those turns up in concrete repair and replacement work, and every one is avoidable on a new pour. If you are weighing repair against replacement, we will tell you which one your slab actually needs.

Tear-out and pour from one crew

Most concrete crews sub out demolition and most demolition outfits do not pour. That gap is where schedules slip and where damage gets argued about. We do concrete removal and the new pour with the same crew.

How a job runs

1. Walk the drive and quoteWe look at how the old slab failed, where water goes, and what the driveway carries, then confirm thickness, reinforcement and finish.
2. Tear out and haulThe old slab is broken out and hauled off, along with the failed base underneath it.
3. Excavate and compactDown past disturbed material, graded stone in, compacted in lifts.
4. Form and reinforceForms set to the drainage slope. Rebar or mesh on chairs, not on the ground.
5. Pour, finish, jointPlaced, screeded, floated and finished. Control joints cut the same day.
6. Cure and cleanCured to the weather, edges cleaned, debris gone. We tell you when to walk it and when to drive it.

Concrete work in Waukegan

Waukegan has the county's largest city, with a wide range of housing from historic to new, which means lake-effect wind and sun that dry slabs out fast, plus salt-heavy winters near the lakefront. We are based here and run the whole county from it, including North Chicago, Park City, Gurnee and up into Kenosha County.