Providence Concrete Driveway

Driveway

A concrete driveway here has to live through freeze-thaw from November to March, a plow blade every storm, and whatever the salt truck flings at the apron. So we pour four inches on a standard residential drive, five to six where a work truck parks, over six to eight inches of compacted process stone. Control joints get cut the next day, about every ten feet. Concrete cracks, that part isn't up for debate, we just decide where. Skip the joints and by the second winter you've got a jagged line across the middle and you're pricing cracked driveway repair on a slab that's barely broken in.

Most of the driveway replacement work Providence Concrete Company gets called for started as a pour on soft dirt with no base. Square footage, how much old slab comes out, and whether a truck can reach the back all move the number.

Reseal Asphalt Driveway

When we reseal an asphalt driveway, the sealer itself is the last hour of the work and everything before it is the actual job. We blow the surface clean, cut the grass creeping in off the edges, prime the oil spots where your car parks, and fill the cracks first. Sealer bridges a hairline and nothing wider, so anything you can drop a pencil into is cracked driveway repair, not a coating question.

Then two thin coats instead of one heavy one. Thick sealer peels off in sheets by the second winter.

We want 50 degrees and climbing with no rain coming, which in Providence means roughly May through September, and cars stay off it 24 to 48 hours. Every three or four years is plenty. If the mat has gone gray and gravelly, Providence Concrete Company will tell you sealer is lipstick on it.

Asphalt Driveway

An asphalt driveway is the right call more often than a concrete guy is supposed to admit. Asphalt flexes with our frost heave, it goes down in a day, and you can park on it by the weekend. Concrete lasts longer and holds a finish, but it costs more up front and it has no love for road salt. We lay both, and I'll tell you straight which one suits your grade, your runoff and how you park.

What moves the cost to repave driveway work around here is the base, not the blacktop. A July mat over soft gravel will ripple by the second summer no matter how good it looks the day it's rolled. We dig, compact and check where the water goes before any hot mix comes off the truck.

Providence Concrete Company handles asphalt driveway replacement on the East Side, in Elmhurst and out toward Cranston.

Asphalt Driveway Installation

Asphalt driveway installation is what I steer you toward when the slope is long, the budget is tight, or you'd rather not watch a concrete driveway spider-crack through a February like the ones we get here. The work is mostly what happens before the black stuff shows up: strip the old surface, cut in 8 to 12 inches of processed gravel, compact it in lifts, then pitch the grade so water runs to the street instead of your garage slab. Skip that compaction and you'll have ruts by the second summer, right where the tires sit. What moves the number is excavation depth, how much old material we haul off, and whether we're fixing drainage in driveway low spots while we're in there. At Providence Concrete Company we lay binder and top course the same day, and you stay off it 72 hours.

Asphalt Millings Driveway

An asphalt millings driveway is ground-up road surface given a second life, and done properly it's a solid answer for a long dirt drive off Chalkstone or a farm-style approach out toward Scituate. We shape the base first, crown it so the drainage in driveway sheds to the edges instead of ponding at your garage door, then roll it in two lifts with a vibratory roller. Skip that compaction and you've got ruts by March and a plow blade peeling it up in the first real storm. Millings knit and darken in July heat, so summer is when we like to lay them. They won't hold a crisp edge the way a concrete driveway does, and I'd rather tell you that now. When you want permanent, Providence Concrete Company pours the slab instead.

Asphalt Driveway Repair

Asphalt driveway repair is one of those jobs where the patch you can see is rarely the problem. If your blacktop has alligator cracking, webbed like a dropped windshield, the base underneath has given up and no amount of surface work will save it. We saw out the failed section, dig to the gravel, recompact, then lay hot mix in lifts and roll it while it's still hot. Cold patch from a bag in February lasts until the first plow scrapes down your street.

Cracked driveway repair with sealant is fair game on anything under about half an inch. Wider than that and water is already sitting in the base, and a Providence freeze and thaw cycle will pry it open like a quahog.

Most single-section repairs are a one day job for us at Providence Concrete Company.

Driveway Sealing

Driveway sealing is what keeps road salt out of your slab, and in this city that matters by February. We use a penetrating silane siloxane on most jobs. It soaks in rather than sitting on top like a film that peels off in strips come spring. New concrete waits a full 28 days before we seal it. After that, every two to three years is a fair rhythm.

We wash the surface, let it dry a solid day, fill any cracks that are still moving, then roll two thin coats with the temperature holding above 50 and no rain in the forecast.

Skip it and the deicer gets in, freezes, and pops the top eighth inch off in flakes. Providence Concrete Company seals the driveways we pour and plenty we didn't, because that flaking never stops on its own.

Driveway Fix

A driveway fix is usually one of three jobs, and picking the wrong one is how people end up paying twice. Hairline cracks under a quarter inch we rout out and fill with polyurethane, and that is cracked driveway repair done in a morning. Spalling and flaking from road salt off Hope Street means the surface is gone, not the slab, so we grind and resurface. But when the cracks run clean through four inches of concrete in three or four places and the panels have settled apart, cement driveway repair is just lipstick. That is a driveway replacement, and I will tell you so. We saw out the old slab, fix the base that caused it, and repour. Keep cars off for a week, and at Providence Concrete Company we wait a full month before anything gets sealed.

Pavers Driveways

Pavers driveways win you the curb appeal, but they're really won or lost in the part nobody sees. Under the stone we want 8 to 12 inches of compacted process gravel put down in lifts, an inch of bedding sand screeded flat, and a rigid edge restraint spiked tight, or the border creeps outward by the second spring and the whole field goes loose. Joints get polymeric sand. Skip that and you've got weeds by July and ants doing the rest.

The nice thing about pavers is repairability. Plow blade clips a corner, a low spot settles, we pull those stones, fix the base and set them back with no patch scar the way a concrete driveway shows one.

A standard two car job runs our Providence Concrete Company crews about three to five days, longer if the old base has to come out.

Sealing Cement Driveway

Sealing a cement driveway is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy for a slab, and it's the step most people skip until the first February chews the surface into cornflakes. Fresh concrete gets 28 days to cure before we seal it, no shortcuts. Then we use a penetrating siloxane that soaks into the pores instead of a shiny film that peels in sheets by spring and makes your concrete driveway look like a sunburn. That matters here, because the plows drop salt on every hill in this city and salt plus freeze and thaw is what causes spalling.

Timing is everything. We seal when it's above 50 degrees and staying there, dry for 24 hours after. A typical two-car drive takes us half a day.

Reapply every two to three years and driveway sealing stays a chore, not a repair.

Paver Driveway Installation

Paver driveway installation is the one job where almost everything that matters happens before a single paver comes off the pallet. We dig out 10 to 12 inches, lay processed gravel in lifts and compact each one, then screed an inch of bedding sand flat. Pavers go down in a herringbone pattern for a driveway, because that interlock is what stops tires from shoving them sideways every time you crank the wheel coming out onto the street. Then edge restraint, spiked down, and polymeric sand swept into the joints.

Skip the edge restraint and by the second Providence winter your border is doing the wave.

Most two-car jobs run us about a week. What moves the number is depth of excavation, paver choice and how much old concrete driveway has to come out first. At Providence Concrete Company we set the base like it's the finished product, because it basically is.

Drainage In Driveway

Drainage in a driveway is the part nobody thinks about until March, when meltwater runs at the garage door instead of the street. Half of Providence sits on a hill, so on College Hill and up around Blackstone Boulevard we're usually pitching the slab away from the house at a quarter inch per foot and cutting a trench drain across the apron where the grade won't allow it. Get that pitch wrong and water sits, freezes, and lifts the panel. That's how a two week concrete driveway installation turns into cement driveway repair by the second winter.

We also tie into what's already there, existing footing drains, a dry well, or the curb line, and we set the grate below the finished surface so a plow doesn't catch it. The crew at Providence Concrete Company checks the runoff path before a single form goes down.

What the job involves

A concrete driveway starts with demolition and dirt, not concrete. We break out the old slab, haul it, then cut down and compact 8 to 12 inches of processed gravel in lifts, because a slab is only as honest as what's under it. Then forms, rebar or wire mesh tied up off the base, and a 4,000 psi mix poured at four inches, five where your truck sits. Control joints get cut the next day at a quarter of the depth. Skip those and the slab picks its own crack line, usually right across the middle.

Pour day runs about six hours. Walk on it in a couple of days, park on it after seven, and it keeps curing for a month.

It's the same crew that handles the flatwork side of Providence Concrete Company, so nobody's practicing on your driveway.

What it costs

What it costs on a concrete driveway comes down to square footage, what's under the old one, and how hard it is to get a mixer truck near it. Tearing out and hauling off a failed slab moves the cost to replace a driveway concrete more than folks expect, and a narrow East Side street with cars on both sides adds a half day of wheelbarrow work. Thickness matters too. Four inches handles cars, six with rebar if a plow truck or a boat sits on it all winter. Finish shifts the concrete driveway cost as well, broom being the plain workhorse and stamped costing more to lay and cure.

Call me at (401) 394-6425 and I'll measure yours and put a real number in writing. The figure from Providence Concrete Company holds unless we hit ledge on the dig, which around here is a fair bet.

Why choose us for this

Your concrete driveway is cracked at the apron, the plow caught the edge again last winter, and you want it handled once, not supervised. Fair enough.

So, three things we won't do. We won't quote one number on the phone and hand you a bigger one on the invoice. We won't tear out half your slab and vanish to another job in Cranston for a week. And we won't leave washout in your lawn or slurry running down the storm drain.

We're not the cheapest of the concrete driveway contractors you'll call, and that's deliberate. We compact the base, set the forms true, and hold the thickness and the pitch, which is the day some crews skip. Old slab condition and drainage are what move your number.

An estimate from Providence Concrete Company costs you nothing and obligates you to nothing.

Frequently asked questions