Stamped concrete services in Pembroke Pines FL - a patterned slab on a solid base

Most people who call us about stamping have a plain gray slab that's cracked, stained or just tired. Others are planning a new concrete patio or driveway and want it to look like more than a sidewalk. The price moves with the size of the area, the pattern and colors you pick, whether an old slab has to come out first and how much work the base needs. The schedule mostly turns on any permit the city asks for, the weather on pour day and the cure before sealing. We're based in Pembroke Pines and work across the cities around it in Broward and Miami-Dade, and when I come out for the estimate I walk the job with you and explain what's in the price.

I start every stamped job by walking it with you. Stamped concrete looks great but can get slick once it's sealed, so we talk about where people walk with wet feet and whether added grip makes sense there. Then our crew digs out and packs the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, because a base that's only raked level settles with the dirt and takes your pattern down with it. We check where the water runs so the slab falls away from the house, set the forms and the rebar, which is steel that holds the slab together if it cracks, and pour. While the concrete is still soft, we press in the pattern. Then we cut control joints, grooves that give the slab a planned place to crack, and we line them up with the pattern's grout lines so a crack, if it comes, follows a line we chose. Concrete still cracks, and the joints decide where. After it cures, the wait while the slab gains strength, we wash it and seal it. I also explain the resealing it'll need down the road so that's no surprise. If the budget gets tight, pick a simpler pattern before you trim the base, because nobody sees the base on day one but it's what keeps the pattern flat for years.

Stamping usually isn't the only work on the list. A new patio or drive often needs a path to the front door or side gate, and our concrete sidewalk building work can carry the same pattern or stay plain to save money. If the driveway runs up to a garage with a cracked or uneven floor, it's a good time to talk about garage floor concrete too, so the two slabs meet at the same height.

If your stamped driveway crosses the swale, the grass strip between your yard and the street, that stretch is covered by the city's Building and Zoning Department, which issues permits for paving or repaving driveway entrances over and across swale areas. The city's Engineering Division also says engineering permits are required for construction on private property, in public rights-of-way and in easements. A job inside the South Broward Drainage District needs a permit release from the district as well. Which of these your patio, walk or driveway calls for depends on where it sits and what it touches, and you can read the city's own list on its permits page. When it's unclear, we check with the city's building office before anything starts, and when your job needs a permit, we take care of the application and the paperwork the city asks for as part of the work.

On a lot of driveways here, the apron, the last stretch that meets the road, runs right across that swale, so that's where the rules and the pattern meet. We settle where the stamped pattern starts and stops before the forms go in, and we work through that same question with homeowners on jobs in Miramar and Davie, where their own city sets the rules.