Decorative concrete in Kirkland WA - the look you want, poured on a solid base

Most people call us when a slab is solid but dull, or when they're planning a new patio and want it to look like more than a parking pad. The price turns on the size of the area, the finish you pick, how much digging and base work the spot needs and whether old concrete has to come out first. The schedule turns on the weather and on how long a new pour needs before you can use it, and I'll give you a figure for your own job once I've seen it. We're based in Kirkland and work across the cities around it, inside city limits and out in the county areas too.

I start by asking what look you want and how much upkeep you're up for, because a stamped pattern, a colored slab and a stain each age differently and ask different things of you. On a new pour, our crew digs out the soft dirt and packs the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, then sets the forms so water runs away from the house and ties in rebar, the steel that holds the slab together if it cracks. We pour early in the day so heat doesn't dry the top before we've finished it, press in the pattern or work in the color while it's still soft, and cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the slab a planned place to crack instead of across your pattern. Then it cures, the wait while it gains strength, and we seal it. If the budget gets tight, I'd rather simplify the pattern than cut corners on the base, because nobody sees the base on day one but it decides whether that nice top stays flat. On a new pour I'll also remind you to go easy on ice melt that first year, which lines up with one Michigan concrete group's advice to keep deicers on new concrete to a minimum until it's a year old.

Decorative work often sits beside other jobs. If your patio is cut into a slope, concrete retaining walls hold the soil back so the slab isn't fighting the hill, and the wall can carry a finish that matches. Indoors, concrete floor installation for a basement or shop gives you a new slab that can take a stain, so one crew handles the floor and the color.

The City of Kirkland doesn't ask for a building permit on driveways and sidewalks 30 inches or less above the ground, as long as they aren't over a basement or on an accessible route, but that list doesn't settle a patio or other decorative slab, so it's worth checking. The exemption also doesn't cover lots in flood hazard, wetland, steep slope, shoreline or other critical areas, and you can check yours with a Parcel Report from the city's property search tool. Removing or bringing in more than 50 cubic yards of soil, or changing the way water drains, needs a permit, and once a job needs one, the city reviews drainage when it adds or replaces 500 square feet or more of hard surface. When a permit applies, I'll tell you at the estimate and either take care of the application with the city or walk you through it, so you know where it stands.

A lot of the yards we work in slope toward the house or have an old patio poured on dirt that was only raked flat, so we check where the water runs before we set a form. We see the same sloped lots on jobs in Bellevue and Redmond, and we handle them the same way.