Ask anybody on Federal Hill about the state of the pavement and you'll get a fifteen minute speech and a hand gesture. Providence concrete paving takes a beating here, between February frost, the salt trucks and a plow blade that finds your apron every single winter. So we build for that. At Providence Concrete Company we dig to a real subgrade, compact it in lifts and set proper control joints, because a driveway that skips those steps starts cracking by the second spring.
Here's what you get from my crew: we show up when we said, we talk to you like a neighbor, we answer the phone, and we sweep up before the truck leaves.
Below I'll walk you through how the work goes, what moves the price, where we pour and the questions folks ask first. Call me at (401) 394-6425 and I'll come look at it.
Paving Companies
Plenty of paving companies will quote your job off a phone call and a satellite photo. I'd rather stand on the slab first. What separates paving contractors around here isn't the mix truck, it's everything that happens before it shows up: how much of the old concrete comes out, whether the subgrade gets properly compacted or just raked smooth, how deep the gravel base runs, and where the control joints get cut. Skip that and in three winters you've got the same crack map you see on half the aprons off Chalkstone Avenue.
Size, access for the truck, tear-out of what's already there, slab thickness and reinforcement are what move the price on concrete paving. At Providence Concrete Company we measure, we check where the water goes, and we tell you what the slab actually needs, even when that's less than you were bracing for.
Flagstone Pavers
Flagstone pavers are the one job where I want you standing in the yard with me, because irregular bluestone and quartzite come in shapes nobody can draw on paper, and the layout gets decided on the ground. What moves the price is thickness, how much cutting the pattern needs, and whether we set the stone dry on compacted stone dust or on a mortar bed over a concrete base. Tight joints on an East Side patio mean more saw work than a rustic random pattern with planting between.
Done badly, flagstone rocks under your heel by the second winter. Freeze and thaw around here will find any soft spot in the base, which is why our paver installation starts with six inches of compacted gravel, not sand.
A four hundred square foot patio usually runs us three to four days.
Asphalt Paving
Asphalt paving is the other half of what we do, and plenty of Providence driveways are better off with blacktop than with a slab. We dig down to stable subgrade, lay six to eight inches of processed gravel, compact it in lifts, then run binder and a top course while the mix is still hot enough to roll. Skip the compaction and you get birdbaths by the second spring. Frost handles the rest.
Around here the season runs roughly April into early November. Any later and the mix goes cold before the roller reaches it, and you'll be looking at those seams for years.
Give a fresh drive a full season before paving sealing, or you just trap the oils in.
Same crew and same trucks whether you call Providence Concrete Company for concrete paving or for asphalt.
Cambridge Pavers
Cambridge Pavers are what I reach for when somebody wants color that still looks right in year ten. The ArmorTec top layer keeps the pigment where the sun and the road salt actually land, so you're not out there in year three with a bucket of paver dye trying to bring the drive back. We set Belgard pavers too, and either one will serve you, but Cambridge tends to hold its face through a Providence February.
The failure is almost never the stone. It's what's under it. Eight inches of compacted process below a patio and more below a driveway, or frost gets in and lifts your concrete paving stones like a heaved sidewalk on Hope Street. Polymeric sand swept into the joints, and paving sealing held off until the efflorescence has come and gone, usually a year. That's the sequence we follow at Providence Concrete Company every time.
Roads Paving
Roads paving is a different animal from driveway paving, and anyone who tells you it's the same job with more material has never watched a subgrade let go in March. On private roads, condo loops and industrial access lanes around Providence, we dig down to something stable, bring in processed gravel, compact it in lifts of about six inches, and crown the surface so water runs to the edge instead of parking itself in your wheel path. Standing water plus a January freeze is how potholes get born, and once one opens on a lane that takes delivery trucks, it grows every week you look at it. Concrete paving wins where heavy vehicles turn and stop; asphalt paving gets you reopened faster. Providence Concrete Company builds both, and your traffic decides which one you get.
Fire Pit Pavers
Fire pit pavers have to take heat that ordinary patio stone was never built for, so I line the inside ring with fire brick and keep the concrete paving stones on the outside where they belong. Skip that liner and you get spalling by the second October, little chips popping off while everybody's standing around holding a cider.
Every pit my crew at Providence Concrete Company sets goes on six inches of compacted base, ring at 36 to 44 inches inside diameter, with about three feet of paver brick around it so a rolling log lands on stone instead of your lawn. Most builds run a day, two with a seat wall.
Diameter, the fire brick liner and whether you want a gas line are what move the number. And don't ask me for paver stain colors inside the ring. Heat eats them.
Sidewalk Pavers
Sidewalk pavers take punishment nothing in the backyard ever sees: mail carriers, dog claws, plow blades in February and neighbors who spread rock salt like they're seasoning a pot of chowder. We set ours on six inches of compacted process stone and an inch of bedding sand, then lock the perimeter with paver edging spiked about every foot. Skip that edge restraint and the walk spreads sideways, and by the second spring you've got a wavy mess.
Roots are the other troublemaker. Those big maples on the East Side lift concrete paving stones just like they lift poured panels, except with paver brick we can pull a few, cut the root, and reset the section in an afternoon. That's the whole argument for them.
A typical front walk of twenty to thirty feet runs us two days, start to swept joints.
Porous Concrete Pavers
Porous concrete pavers are what I put down when the water has nowhere else to go, which around here is most of April. Instead of packing a base tight, we build loose and open: a deep No. 2 stone reservoir, No. 57 above it, then No. 8 chips swept into the joints so rain drops straight through instead of running down your driveway and into the garage.
Two things ruin them. Paving sealing is the first, because it glues those joints shut and leaves you with a very expensive puddle. The second is cheap paver edging, so the outer course starts wandering after a couple of freeze cycles.
Give the surface a vacuum sweep once a year, twice if you're parked under maples. At Providence Concrete Company we set reservoir depth by what your soil actually drains, not by habit.
White Concrete Pavers
White concrete pavers look sharp for about a week, and then real life shows up. That's the tradeoff, and I'd rather say it now than after we've laid your patio. Oil drips, leaf tannin in October, rust bleed from irrigation water, and the calcium chloride the plows leave all over the East Side all read loud on a pale paver. So we set them on a compacted base, seal them with a penetrating sealer before the first freeze, and go back over them the following spring. When a stone does get ruined, we swap it and blend the replacement using paver stain colors mixed on site, since a factory paver dye rarely matches a two year old surface and a light paver tint gets you closer. Steel paver edging keeps the field tight so the joints don't wander.
Driveway Paving
Driveway paving is the call we get most, and nine times out of ten the driveway that failed was four inches of concrete poured straight onto whatever dirt was already there. We dig out eight to twelve inches, bring in processed gravel, compact it in lifts, then pour a four inch slab with rebar or fiber and cut control joints every ten to twelve feet so the slab cracks where we tell it to instead of wherever it feels like it in February. Two days on site, a week before you park on it, closer to a month before the truck goes on.
What moves the number is how much old material comes out, how badly the grade runs toward the street, and whether you want a broom finish or concrete paving stones set with proper paver edging so the perimeter doesn't creep. Every driveway Providence Concrete Company pours gets pitched away from the garage, no exceptions.
Paving Installer
A paving installer earns his money below the surface, not on top of it. Anyone can set concrete paving stones in a tidy herringbone. What we do at Providence Concrete Company is dig out 10 to 12 inches, compact the base in 3 to 4 inch lifts, then screed the bedding sand dead flat before the first paver brick lands. Skip that and February will find the soft spot for you.
Paver edging is the other place corners get cut. We spike the restraint every foot around the perimeter, because a plow blade on a January morning doesn't care how nice the pattern looked in July.
And we pull paver stones off three pallets at once, mixing as we go, so the tint blends instead of running in stripes across your walk.
Paver Installation
A paver installation lives or dies on what's underneath it, not on what you see from the sidewalk. We dig out 8 to 12 inches, compact processed stone in lifts rather than one lazy dump, then screed a bed of coarse sand before a single paver stone goes down. Leave off proper paver edging and by the third February your border courses have wandered like the merge onto 195, joints open up, and weeds move in for the summer. What moves your paver installation cost is access for the machine, how much old material we haul away, the pattern (herringbone eats more cuts than running bond), and whether you're set on concrete paving stones or clay paver brick. Most patios and walkways take our crew at Providence Concrete Company two to four days, polymeric sand swept and locked in on the last one.
What the job involves
What the job involves, start to finish: we cut out 10 to 12 inches of soil, haul it off, then build back with about 8 inches of processed stone compacted in 4-inch lifts. Skip that base and the prettiest concrete paving in the state will crack by its second winter. Then forms, wire mesh or rebar, and a 4-inch slab, 6 inches wherever a truck or a plow sits. We saw control joints every 10 feet or so, because the slab is going to move and you'd rather pick where. Air-entrained mix, always. Freeze-thaw around here doesn't negotiate.
Most driveway paving we do at Providence Concrete Company takes two to three days on site, then seven days before you park on it. If there's a border apron, the paver edging goes in last so nothing creeps.
What it costs
What it costs comes down to four things: square footage, what's under the surface now, what you want on top, and whether a truck can get near it. Concrete paving over soft, wet subgrade means deeper excavation and more processed stone, and that shows up before we pour a thing. Paver stones run higher than a poured slab, and paver installation cost climbs again with curves, borders and hand cuts around a bulkhead. Skip proper paver edging and you save a little now, then watch the border wander out of line by the third winter, so we don't skip it.
Call Providence Concrete Company at (401) 394-6425 and we'll measure the job and give you a real number instead of a guess off a satellite photo.
Tearing out old asphalt and hauling it away is its own line, and a narrow Federal Hill side street where we're wheelbarrowing past parked cars adds hours.
Why choose us for this
Most people who choose us for this kind of concrete paving already have a quote in hand, a driveway apron that's been bugging them since the February thaw, and zero interest in thinking about it again for years.
So here's what we won't do. We won't say one number on the phone and put a bigger one on the invoice. We won't start your pour and then disappear to a second job across town for a week. We won't lean on you to sign today. We won't leave sand, cut-offs and busted paver edging in your grass and call it done.
We're not the cheapest bid you'll get. Compacting base in lifts and setting real edge restraint takes hours, and Providence Concrete Company would rather spend them now than dig it up two springs later.
The estimate costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Frequently asked questions
How long before I can drive on new concrete paving?
Foot traffic after about 48 hours, your car after seven days, and the loaded truck after 28 days once the slab has reached full strength. We pour concrete paving at four inches for walks and patios and five to six over a compacted base for a driveway. If we're pouring in November, we blanket it, because concrete that freezes in the first day or two comes back to haunt you as surface scaling by the second winter.
Should I patch my slab or replace it?
Patch if the cracks are hairline and the slab is still sitting flat. Replace if a corner has dropped, because that means the base underneath moved and no amount of top-side repair fixes a base problem. Poured slabs and concrete pavers fail differently, too. With pavers it's usually the paver edging letting go at the perimeter, and resetting that is a morning's work, not a teardown.
How do we get started?
Call Providence Concrete Company at (401) 394-6425 and we'll come measure, check your drainage and tell you straight what the slab needs. We're out on jobs nine to five weekdays, so leave a message and we'll call back the same day.