Providence potholes have names. A few of them have mailing addresses, and one on Broad Street may qualify for a homestead exemption.
I'm James. Providence Concrete Company is my crew, and for the best part of 25 years we've poured driveways, patios, steps, foundations and concrete curbing from Federal Hill out through Cranston, Pawtucket and East Providence. We show up when we said we would, we don't leave you talking to a voicemail box, and we sweep your sidewalk before the truck pulls away.
Keep reading and you'll see what each job involves, how long it takes, where we work and what people ask us before they book. Then call me at (401) 394-6425 and I'll come look at it myself.
What happens when you call
What happens when you call is that you get me, James, on the phone, not a script read from three states away. We answer nine to five, Monday through Friday, and when a pour truly can't wait, Saturdays happen. I'll come walk the site, measure, and watch where the water goes, because water runs downhill whether you're on College Hill or Silver Lake.
On a curb job I'll show you where the concrete curb forming has to curve, where a gutter curb makes sense, and whether your entrance needs an ADA compliant curb ramp. Then you get a written scope, a start window, and a straight timeline for when fresh curbs can take traffic.
Curbs
Curbs take more abuse than anything else I pour. Plow blade in February, a box truck clipping the corner, road salt every other week. On a concrete curb installation we set forms on compacted base and pour a monolithic curb and gutter in one go, so there's no cold joint for meltwater to work into. Skip that and the face shears off by the second winter, Bill Belichick style: no explanation, just gone.
Parking lot work usually means ADA compliant curb ramps, and the detectable warning panel gets cast in flush, not glued down later. Where concrete curbing meets a stamped concrete apron, we match the edge so it reads as one pour.
Stamped Concrete
Stamped concrete is a one shot deal, and that surprises people. Once the mud hits the window where it'll take a pattern, we've got about an hour. Too wet and the ashlar slate blurs into mush, too stiff and the stamp barely dents it. I use integral color plus a release powder so there's some variation in the tone, because a patio that's all one flat gray reads fake from the sidewalk.
Joints get cut within a day and hidden in the grout lines so the crack goes where I put it. Then reseal every two or three years, sooner if the salt truck runs past your place all winter, because a bare stamped slab turns into concrete repair fast.
Concrete Repair
Concrete repair is the call I get most once a Providence winter is done with us, after the plows and the road salt have had their fun. Not every crack means a new pour. A hairline in a concrete driveway I can route out and fill with a flexible sealant; surface spalling from de-icer gets ground down and topped.
Repairing concrete curb where somebody's truck clipped the corner means saw cutting back to sound material, not troweling patch mix over loose crumbs, because that pops right off by March. Most repairs run a day, two if we're waiting on cure. Depth, exposed rebar and whether the base shifted change the job. Call me at (401) 394-6425.
Concrete Driveway
A concrete driveway in Providence has to survive plow blades, road salt and a winter's worth of freeze-thaw, so what goes underneath matters more than what you see on top. We dig out, compact six to eight inches of processed gravel, run rebar or fiber, and pour four inches for cars, five or six if a work truck lives there.
Then we saw the control joints inside a day, because concrete cracks where you tell it to or where it pleases. Skip the base and you'll see settling by the second spring. If you want more than gray, decorative concrete finishes and a poured concrete curb for driveway edges go in the same pour.
Decorative Concrete Finishes
Decorative concrete finishes are how a slab stops looking like a sidewalk and starts looking like it belongs to your house. Integral color mixed right in the truck, exposed aggregate washed back, a salt finish, saw-cut borders, decorative curbing wrapped around a planting bed. It is still structural work, so we pour on compacted base with the same discipline we bring to a concrete foundation.
Where it goes sideways is color: acid stain on a slab that got overworked with a power trowel comes out blotchy as a bad tan, and our winters plus plow salt will burn through a surface sealer in two or three seasons unless somebody re-coats it. Color method, cut count and sealer choice all shift the number.
Concrete Foundation
A concrete foundation is the pour nobody sees and everybody feels. We dig footings below the frost line, three feet or better around Providence, because one February freeze under a shallow footing will lift a wall and send the crack straight up through your drywall. Then compacted gravel, rebar tied at the laps, a 10 mil vapor barrier, and a mix in the 3,000 to 4,000 psi range.
A monolithic slab for a garage or an addition usually goes in a single day, with forms off the next. Get the base wrong and you'll chase sticking doors for years. A cracked concrete patio you can live with. A cracked footing you can't.
Concrete Patio
A concrete patio is the one slab that has to look good, because you're going to be sitting on it with a Del's in your hand all July. We dig out and compact a gravel base, pour at four inches, and slope it a quarter inch per foot away from your foundation so the rain heads for the yard and not your basement. Skip the base and the joints, and Providence freeze-thaw will crack it by the second spring.
If your grade drops off hard, we'll talk about a concrete retaining wall to hold the back edge, and decorative curbing if you want a finished border. Call me, James, at (401) 394-6425.
Concrete Retaining Wall
Your yard drops away and something has to hold it back. That's what a concrete retaining wall does, and on the slopes off College Hill I've built plenty of them. Footings go below the 42-inch frost line, rebar gets tied in, and crushed stone with weep holes sits behind the wall so water drains instead of shoving. Skip the drainage and one Rhode Island winter later the thing leans like it lost a bet.
Height, how much dirt we move, and how far we wheel concrete from the street all factor in. On commercial concrete jobs we'll often cap the top with a mow curb so mowers can ride right along it.
Commercial Concrete
Commercial concrete is a different animal from a backyard patio. Loading dock aprons, parking lot pads, and concrete curb gutter runs that actually carry water to the catch basin instead of ponding by your front door every February thaw. We handle concrete curb cutting for a new entrance and pour an ADA compliant sidewalk ramp with the slope and detectable warnings done right, because a ramp that's off by a degree is a ramp somebody makes you rip out.
Square footage, how thick the slab has to be for truck traffic, and rebar or mesh all change the number. And if your floor is worn but sound, resurfacing keeps you open while we work.
Resurfacing
Resurfacing works when the slab under it is still sound: nothing rocking, no cracks that open and close with the seasons. We grind or shot blast the old surface first, patch the spalled spots, then bond a polymer overlay a quarter inch or so over the top. Skip that prep and the overlay peels off in sheets by the second winter, usually right where the plow blade and the road salt hit hardest.
Most of what we resurface is concrete flatwork, patios, walks and garage floors that look tired but still sit flat. Figure two days on an average patio, foot traffic the day after.
If the base has moved, I'll say so. Resurfacing buys you a few good years there, not twenty.
Concrete Flatwork
Your front walk has settled back toward the house, and rain puddles by the door.
Flatwork is all the flat stuff: walkways, garage floors, shed pads, landing slabs, sidewalk panels. When a panel tips the wrong way, water runs at your foundation instead of away from it and soaks the stone base underneath. That base washes out, you get a void, then the slab drops into it, and one trip hazard becomes three.
We form for slope away from the building, pour over crushed stone, and broom the surface so it isn't slick when the rain comes off the bay.
What moves the price on flatwork is total area, how thick we pour, whether the truck can reach the pour or we're wheeling concrete through a gate, and how much old slab has to come out first.
Call me at (401) 394-6425 and we will walk it together.
Concrete
Concrete is most of what I've done my whole working life, and around Providence the real enemy isn't traffic, it's freeze-thaw. Water sits in a hairline crack in November, freezes, and by March you've got a spall the size of a hubcap. So we pour an air-entrained mix, we don't water it down to make it easier to spread, and we saw control joints within the first day rather than letting the slab pick its own spot to crack.
Footings, flatwork, aprons, concrete steps that don't rock under you when your hands are full of groceries, and curbs that can take a plow blade off a side street in February.
Concrete Steps
Corners crumbling off the treads, and one step rocks a little when you hit it.
That rocking usually means the steps were poured on loose fill that has settled, or the rebar inside is rusting and pushing the concrete apart from the inside. Salt over the winter speeds it up. Leave it and the handrail posts loosen next, the riser heights go uneven, and everybody who walks up misjudges the last one. On a triple decker with a shared front entry, that is a lot of feet.
What moves the price on steps is the number of risers, the size of the landing, how tight the access is for a wheelbarrow, and whether the old set needs concrete removal and hauling before we can form anything. Patching a spalled tread is a different job from tearing out and repouring, and I will tell you straight which one yours needs.
Concrete Removal
Concrete removal is the part nobody takes a picture of, and it's the part that decides whether your new slab lasts. We saw cut clean lines, break the old pour into pieces two men can lift, and haul it off to a recycler instead of burying the rubble in your back yard. Slab thickness, rebar inside it, and how close we can back a truck to the work all change how long the demo runs.
Do it lazy, pour over a broken base, and every old crack shows back up by the second February thaw. If a new apron needs curb cutting, we handle that while the concrete paving crew preps the base.
Concrete Paving
Puddles that sit for days after the rain, and edges you can trip on.
Standing water means the pad was poured flat with no fall to it, or the base under it has settled and pulled the slab down. Water that can't run off works into the joints, softens the gravel below, and then the panels start rocking under traffic. Once a panel rocks, salt and a plow blade finish the job for you.
We saw out the failed sections, re-grade and pack the base, and pour the fall back in so water leaves the way it came. Thickness and wire mesh depend on what rolls over it, since a mail truck and a loaded box truck are not the same weight.
Size of the pour, how close we can back a truck to it, and how much old concrete has to come out are what move the number. Call us at (401) 394-6425 and we will walk the whole surface together.
Residential and commercial concrete company in Providence
I run a residential and commercial concrete company in Providence, and a normal week means a back patio behind a triple-decker on the East Side in the morning and a loading apron off Allens Avenue by two. Same mix, different scale. For homeowners it's walks, steps, and poured concrete curbing that keeps the mulch out of the lawn.
For businesses it's paving curbs, curb cutting for a new entrance, and sidewalk ramps built to the slope an inspector will actually put a level on. Square footage, thickness, tear-out and how close a truck can get all push the number around. Thin edges and a skipped base are what fail first.
Why Providence homeowners and businesses choose us
Providence homeowners and businesses choose us because we pour for the winter that's coming, not just the day we're standing on your lawn. That means a 4,000 psi air entrained mix, no water dumped in at the truck to make finishing easy, and control joints cut within about 24 hours of the pour. Skip those and February's freeze thaw will lift a slab like it owes you money.
I've been doing this the best part of 25 years and I'm still on site for the pour. Plenty of concrete curbing contractors hand the trowel to a helper and go. When a plow clips an edge on Hope Street, the crew doing the curb cutting is the crew that poured it.
Areas we serve
The areas we serve start on College Hill and spread out from there, and we're usually rolling before 195 backs up.
Federal Hill, Fox Point, Elmhurst, Mount Pleasant, Silver Lake, Olneyville, Smith Hill, Washington Park, Blackstone, Wanskuck, Cranston, Pawtucket, East Providence, North Providence, Johnston, Warwick, Barrington, Riverside, Rumford, Seekonk, Lincoln and Smithfield.
East Side lots are tight and old, so curb cutting there is saw and hand work with nowhere to park the machine. Out toward Barrington and Riverside the soil runs sandy, which means a deeper base under poured concrete curbing or it settles by the second winter. And a short strip of concrete garden curbing up in Smithfield waits until we have another job nearby, because the drive would eat the whole day.
Frequently asked questions
How do I find a concrete contractor I can actually trust?
Ask two things and you'll sort the field fast. First, ask about the license and insurance. We hold a current license and carry general liability and workers' compensation, and I'll send you the certificate if you ask. Second, ask what goes under the slab. My answer is four inches of concrete over six to eight inches of compacted process stone, wire or fiber in the mix, and control joints cut at the right spacing. Crews that rush the base are why so many driveways around here look like a broken windshield after three winters.
How much does 1,000 square feet of concrete cost?
I price it after I walk it, because the same square footage can swing hard. Thickness, whether there's an old slab to break out and haul away, how close the truck can get to the pour, reinforcement, and the finish all pull the number in different directions. A broom finish costs less than stamped curbing or a stamped patio, because decorative work is hours of hand labor after the pour.
How long before I can walk and park on it?
Foot traffic in about 24 to 36 hours, vehicles after seven days, full design strength around 28 days. Heat and cold change that. A July pour stiffens up quick, and a cool, damp October week slows everything down, which is why we cure it properly instead of hoping. Keep road salt off any new slab through its first winter.
What's the difference between poured concrete curbing and an extruded curb?
Different machine, different job. An extruded concrete curb is laid by a machine in one continuous ribbon, which is what you want for concrete garden curbing or a mow strip along a bed. Poured concrete curbing gets forms, a stone base and steel, and that's what we use for street curbs, parking lot islands and driveway aprons. Concrete curb cutting is separate again: that's sawing an opening in an existing curb for a new entrance.
Will you wreck my lawn getting the truck in?
Sometimes we can't get near it, and I'll tell you that before we start rather than after. On tight East Side and Fox Point lots we set plywood runs and wheel the mud in, or bring a pump truck. Any ruts or turf we do disturb, we grade back and seed.
Can you pour concrete in a Rhode Island winter?
Yes, down to about 40 degrees and holding, with an air-entrained mix and insulated blankets over the slab. If we're looking at three straight nights below freezing, I'd rather push you to spring than hand you a slab that scales off in year two.
Contact The Providence Concrete Company now
Contact the Providence Concrete Company the day you notice the problem, not three winters later. A broken curb, an apron that's turned to gravel, a concrete shower curb quietly wetting the subfloor underneath, none of that heals itself, and the freeze thaw swings we get off the bay make it worse by March every time. Call me, James, at (401) 394-6425 and tell me what you're looking at.
If it's curb cutting for a new driveway, I'll tell you what the city expects before a saw blade ever touches the concrete. We're reachable weekdays, nine to five, and when a job genuinely can't sit, Saturday is on the table.
See a few of our projects
