Concrete patio construction in Monrovia CA - a slab built for the way you use your yard

Most calls start with an old patio that's cracked, sunk or chipping, or a patch of dirt where you've always meant to put a table. The price mostly moves with the size, whether we're tearing out an old slab and hauling it away, the finish you pick, any steel for a grill or outdoor kitchen, and how hard it is to get concrete into your backyard. The schedule turns on the weather, the time the slab needs to cure and whether your address needs a permit. When I come out, I measure the job and write down what the price covers, so you get your own figure instead of a guess.

It starts at the first visit, where we settle the finish, the joint layout and any rebar for a grill or outdoor kitchen, so the bid covers the patio you actually want and not a plain slab we'd have to reprice later. On the job, our crew breaks out and hauls off any old concrete, digs out the area and packs the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, so it doesn't settle along with loose dirt. We set the forms and lay in any rebar we planned, steel bars that help the slab carry heavy weight, then pour when the weather's on our side, put on the finish and cut control joints, shallow lines that give cracks a place to go. After that the slab cures, which is the wait while it hardens and gains strength, and you stay off it until it's ready. If the budget gets tight, I'd rather you go with a plain broom finish than skimp on the base, because nobody sees the base on day one but everything else rests on it.

Patios rarely stand alone. If you want a pattern like stone or brick pressed into the surface, that's our stamped concrete services, and we plan it with the patio from the start because the joints have to work with the pattern. Most patios also need a way to get to them, so we often pour a walk from the driveway or side gate as part of our concrete sidewalk building work.

Who decides on a permit for your patio depends on your address. Inside city limits it's Monrovia's Building and Safety Division, and you apply through the city's permits page. Some homes in the unincorporated part of Monrovia sit outside the city's reach, and those go to the county's San Gabriel Valley Building and Safety office in Arcadia instead. We check with the right office before we set a date, and if the job needs a permit, we sort out who pulls it and get it in hand before work starts. The city tells anyone pulling a permit to bring a copy of their workers' compensation insurance, so that's part of what we sort out too.

Most patio jobs we see around here start with an older slab behind the house, and the only way back there is often a narrow side yard or gate, so we plan how the concrete gets in, by wheelbarrow or pump, before I write the price. We run into the same tight backyards on jobs in Sierra Madre and Duarte.