Providence Curbs

Concrete Curbs

Concrete curbs are the piece of your property that catches the plow blade in February, the UPS truck tire in July, and every gallon of runoff in between, so we pour them like they matter. Under the curbing goes six to eight inches of compacted processed gravel, because a curb set on soft fill will hump and crack by the second thaw and no amount of patching hides that line. We use a 4,000 psi mix with air entrainment, tool control joints every eight to ten feet so the concrete cracks where we tell it to, and cure it properly instead of letting an August sun cook the top inch.

Skip the salt that first winter. A concrete curb for driveway edges is tough, but fresh concrete and rock salt get along like Sox fans and Yankee caps.

Concrete Shower Curb

A concrete shower curb is the smallest thing we pour all week, and it's the one that causes the most damage when it's done sloppy. In these old Providence triple-deckers the bathroom sits over a subfloor that's seen a century of winters, so we form the curb, pack it tight, and pitch the top back toward the drain about a quarter inch so water heads for the pan instead of your hallway. Here's the step that gets skipped: no fastener ever goes through the curb into the waterproof liner. We brace the forms outside the membrane and let the concrete hold itself. Same forming discipline we bring to street curbing, just three inches tall instead of six.

Providence Concrete Company usually forms and pours one in a morning, then your tile setter waits a day or two before he floats it.

Gutter Curb

Gutter curb is the one that has to actually work, not just look sharp. It's a curb face and a flat gutter pan poured together, usually twelve to twenty-four inches of pan, and its whole job is moving water to the catch basin instead of letting it sit. We shoot grades before anyone touches a form, because a concrete curb gutter that's off by a quarter inch over ten feet gives you a birdbath, and in Providence a birdbath in February is a sheet of ice by Saturday.

Ponding is the failure you see everywhere. Water sits, freezes, works into the joint, and by the third winter the pan is spalling and the curbs behind it are lifting.

We run string line the whole length and water-test it at Providence Concrete Company before we call it done.

Concrete Curb Installation

Concrete curb installation starts underground, which is why so much of it fails up top. We cut the line, pull the old material, and compact six inches of processed gravel before a single form goes down, because a curb set on soft subgrade will tip the first winter a plow catches its lip. Our mix runs air entrained for freeze thaw, joints get tooled every ten feet or so, and we keep vehicles off it for a few days while it cures. Most residential runs at Providence Concrete Company go in and are stripped inside two days.

What moves the number on concrete curbing is length, how much demolition we're hauling out, whether the grade needs rebuilding, and radius work, since curves take more forming time than a straight run down the property line.

Ada Compliant Curb Ramps

ADA compliant curb ramps are the part of this trade where an inch decides everything, because a ramp running steeper than 1:12 fails inspection no matter how clean the trowel work looks. We keep the running slope under 8.33 percent, hold cross slope at 2 percent or less, run the ramp at least 36 inches wide, and set truncated dome panels the full width so a cane finds them before a foot does. Flared sides get 1:10 where people cut across them.

Get that wrong and there's no patching your way out of it. The concrete curb ramp comes out with a saw and goes back in, which is why Providence Concrete Company shoots grades on the corner before anyone touches a mixer. Figure a day of forming and pouring per corner, plus cure time before the crosswalk opens again. Federal Hill corners almost never start level.

Concrete Curb Forming

Concrete curb forming is where a curb is won or lost, because concrete keeps whatever shape you hand it. We pull a string line off finished grade, then stake forms every three feet or so, tighter on radii where we switch to bender board so the curve reads smooth instead of like a string of small decisions. Wet mix pushes hard. A form that bows a half inch in the middle leaves a belly you'll notice from the sidewalk forever, and on a gutter curb that belly ponds water and turns to ice by February.

Before any truck backs in, someone at Providence Concrete Company walks the forms with a level and a tape. We use air entrained mix, tool control joints every eight to ten feet, and strip the forms the following day.

Cement Curbing

Cement curbing and concrete curbing are the same animal, so don't let anyone charge you extra for the fancier word. What actually matters is the mix. We pour air entrained concrete for curbs here, usually around six percent air and a 4,000 psi mix, because Providence winters and the salt trucks coming off Broad Street will chew through a lean, airless pour in two or three seasons. You'll see it as flaking along the top edge first.

We tool contraction joints every ten feet or so, strip forms the next day, and keep the curbing damp or under compound while it cures. Give it a week before anything with wheels touches it.

Cheap curbing fails from the inside out, which is why Providence Concrete Company won't cut the water content loose just to make a pour go faster.

Concrete Curb Ramp

A concrete curb ramp is the cut in the curb line where a wheelchair, a stroller, or somebody hauling a hand truck full of Federal Hill groceries gets from the street up to the walk. We saw cut the existing curbs back to a clean edge, dig and compact the base, then form the run no steeper than one in twelve with flares at one in ten. Detectable warning panels get set in wet concrete, not glued down afterward, because glued domes pop loose the first time a plow clips them in February.

Where these go wrong is drainage. Set the landing too low and you've built a birdbath that turns into a hockey rink by January. Providence Concrete Company pitches every ramp to the gutter line so water leaves on its own, and we broom finish across the slope, not down it.

Mow Curb

A mow curb is the strip we pour between your lawn and your beds so the mower wheel rides right over the edge and you never touch a string trimmer again. We dig a trench about six inches wide and eight deep, tamp in a few inches of processed gravel, set the forms to your line, and pour with a slight bevel so the wheel climbs it clean. Tooled joints every four to six feet, or it cracks wherever it feels like it.

The failures are always the same. Poured straight on soft loam, and one Providence winter of freeze and thaw lifts it like a bad sidewalk. Cut too shallow, and grass roots run right under and pop out the other side.

Most yards we do at Providence Concrete Company take a day, edging and all.

Extruded Curb

Extruded curb is the machine work: a curb machine walks a stiff, low slump mix out onto your lot in one continuous ribbon, no forms, no stakes, several hundred feet in a day when the base is ready. We use it for parking lot islands, landscape edging and the mow curb along a bed where a formed pour would be overkill. It sticks by bond, which is why we sweep and clean the asphalt first and cut control joints every six to ten feet. Skip either and you get a curb that pops loose in sheets the first February thaw. It also has limits, and I'd rather say so now: a plow blade will shear extruded curbing off a lot faster than it will hurt formed concrete curbs, so anywhere trucks turn hard, Providence Concrete Company forms it instead.

Monolithic Curb

A monolithic curb is one pour, curb and gutter face together, with no cold joint between them for meltwater to sneak into. That seam is exactly where separately poured work fails here. Water finds it in November, freezes, and by March the gutter line has lifted and a plow blade catches the lip and takes a chunk with it. So we set forms as one run, compact the base properly, and place an air-entrained mix that can take our freeze-thaw cycles, then tool control joints roughly every ten feet so it cracks where we decided instead of where it feels like it.

Most of these go down in a day or two once forms are set, though keep traffic off for a week.

Length, curb height, demolition of the old concrete curbing and how close we can get a truck are what move a Providence Concrete Company quote up or down.

Repairing Concrete Curb

Repairing concrete curb is really a question of how much is still worth saving. If the face is spalling from road salt and a plow blade caught the corner, we saw cut back to sound material at the nearest joint and pour a full section rather than smearing a patch on the front. Skim patches on concrete curbs pop off by the second February. Every time. We drill and dowel into the existing curbing so the new piece and the old piece move together, use a stiff air entrained mix, and keep the gutter curb pitched so water still runs where it always did instead of ponding at your apron.

Small repairs go in a day. Traffic stays off for a week, longer in cold weather, and at Providence Concrete Company we'd rather tell you that up front than watch tire marks set into fresh work.

What the job involves

What the job involves starts long before a truck shows up: we snap a line, shoot the grade, and dig out eight to ten inches so there's room for compacted stone under the curb. Then comes the concrete curb forming, flexible steel or bender board on the radii, staked tight every couple of feet, because a wavy form line is a wavy curb forever. We pour an air entrained mix so the freeze thaw and the salt from the plow trucks don't chew it up by the second February. Edges tooled, control joints every eight to ten feet, forms stripped the next day, backfilled after.

Most residential runs we do at Providence Concrete Company take a day to form and a morning to pour. Length, curves, and breaking out old curbing are what move the number.

What it costs

What it costs depends less on the concrete itself than on everything around it. A straight run of mow curb along a flat side yard is one number. A concrete curb for driveway with a radius at the apron, dowels drilled into the existing slab, and a jackhammer day to haul out the broken piece that's already there is another. Concrete curbing cost moves with linear footage, how many curves we're forming, whether we're pouring in forms or running extruded curb off the machine, gutter pan width, and whether ADA compliant curb ramps need detectable warning panels set into the pour. Access counts too. If the truck can't back within a hose length, we're wheeling it.

Call Providence Concrete Company at (401) 394-6425 with your footage and we'll price it properly.

Cheap curb tells on itself by the second February, when the plow catches a high edge and takes the face off.

Why choose us for this

Why choose us for this, and not the truck that quoted less? Because you've got a curb line that's spalled, sunk, or shoved out of true by a plow blade, and you want it handled once and then forgotten.

Three things we won't do. We won't give you a number over the phone and then discover surprises once the invoice shows up. We won't pull the crew off to start somebody else's job while your forms are sitting out. And we won't lean on you to sign today.

We're not the cheapest quote you'll get. We hand-set and brace every form, which takes hours a mobile extruder skips. The estimate costs you nothing and commits you to nothing, and the crew from Providence Concrete Company hauls the busted concrete curbing away instead of stacking it on your lawn.

Frequently asked questions