We pour and repair foundations for homes and small commercial buildings in Marietta, and we do it as a concrete contractor rather than a specialist who subs the flatwork out to somebody else. That matters, because the same crew that sets a footing also pours the driveway, the sidewalk, and the patio it feeds into. Marietta Square is the historic downtown core, with retail and restaurant frontage running along it, and the housing spread out from there covers a wide range of ages. A slab under an old house asks different questions than a slab under a new one.
Every job opens with a look at the ground. We want to know what the slab will sit on, where water leaves the site, and what load the building above it carries, because those three answers set footing depth, rebar size and spacing, and whether wire mesh belongs in the pour at all. Commercial work near the Square runs on a tighter clock, since commuter corridors run toward Atlanta and frontage cannot sit closed for long. We plan around that.
Foundations fail in a small number of ways, and almost all of them trace back to preparation. A slab poured over loose fill settles. Steel set too high or too low does nothing for the concrete around it. Water that has nowhere to go finds the weakest joint and works on it. Cracks are the symptom people call about, but the crack is rarely the whole problem, and patching it without reading the cause buys you a year at best.
Getting it right takes more work in the preparation than in the pour. Grading, compaction, forms that hold a straight line, and steel tied where the load calls for it: that is where the hours go, and it is the part nobody sees once the concrete is finished and troweled. We hold to the same standard on decorative work, so a stamped concrete patio or a colored slab sits on a base built like a structural pour. Call for a free estimate.
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A new foundation starts with excavation to firm bearing, then forms, then steel. We tie rebar in the footings and set vertical dowels where walls will rise, keeping coverage off the dirt with chairs. Concrete goes in continuously so there are no cold joints between lifts. Slabs get wire mesh or rebar on grade, a vapor barrier under the pour, and control joints cut before shrinkage cracking has a chance to pick its own line.
Repair begins with reading the crack. Hairline vertical cracks in a poured wall are usually shrinkage and take epoxy or polyurethane injection. Stair-step or horizontal cracks mean movement, and that gets piers, wall anchors or carbon fiber straps instead of filler. We also rebuild spalled and crumbling concrete where reinforcement has rusted and expanded, cutting back to sound material first. Patching over an active crack hides the problem for one season, no longer.
Poured walls are formed, reinforced and placed in one operation, which makes them denser and more water resistant than block. Typical thickness is eight inches with horizontal and vertical rebar tied to the footing dowels. We consolidate the pour so honeycomb voids do not form behind the forms. Snap tie holes get patched, and the exterior face is damproofed before backfill goes back against a wall that has cured enough to take the load.
The footing spreads the load of the wall across the soil, so it is wider than what sits on it and keyed for the wall above. We dig to undisturbed bearing, never to loose fill, and run continuous rebar with lapped splices around corners. Stepped footings handle sloped lots. Around Marietta Square, where retail and restaurant frontage sits tight to the street, we form footings for commercial concrete work in whatever access the sidewalk allows.
We walk the area with you and look at what the existing concrete is telling us. Cracks that run the length of a slab, corners that have dropped, water that pools against the house. We check grade, drainage direction, and how thick the old pour was at the edges. Marietta has houses of many different ages, so what we find under a 1960s slab is rarely what we find under a newer one.
You get the scope in writing: square footage, slab thickness, reinforcement, finish, and how we handle the tear-out. Line items, not a lump sum, so you can see what each piece of the job costs against the others. We handle permit paperwork where the work requires it. Nothing gets ordered and no concrete gets scheduled until you have read the estimate and told us to go ahead.
Old concrete comes out in sections and gets hauled off. Then the real work starts. We dig to grade, pull out soft spots and organic material, and bring in crushed stone that we compact in lifts rather than dumping in one pass. A base that is not compacted is the most common reason a good pour fails early. We set drainage fall away from the structure before any forms go up.
Forms get staked, squared and checked for fall. Reinforcement depends on the job: rebar on a tied grid for foundations and heavier flatwork, wire mesh for lighter slabs, both held up on chairs so the steel sits inside the concrete instead of on the dirt. On pour day the truck backs to the closest reachable point, and we place, screed and bull float in a continuous run.
Finish depends on what you picked: broom for traction on sidewalks and driveways, stamped or colored for a patio, exposed aggregate where you want texture and grip. We cut control joints before the slab decides where to crack on its own. Curing gets protected. Then we walk the finished concrete installation with you, top to bottom, and go over how long to stay off a new concrete driveway.
Foundation work prices out on conditions, not on a formula. Two houses on the same block can land at different numbers because of what sits under them and how close a truck can park. Everything below is something you can look at yourself before anyone comes out to measure.
| What changes the price | Which way | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An old slab, footing or stump already in the ground | Costs more | It has to be broken out and hauled off before we form anything, and we cannot see its full size until we start. |
| Distance from where the mixer can stand to where the concrete goes | Costs more as it grows | A short chute run is fast. Long runs mean buggies, a pump or hand work, and that is labor on top of the same concrete. |
| Tight frontage, like the storefront and restaurant lots around Marietta Square | Costs more | Trucks stage in a narrow window, deliveries get split smaller, and crews work around foot traffic instead of an open yard. |
| Slab thickness and whether the job calls for rebar or wire mesh | Costs more with thickness and rebar | Steel and depth are chosen for the load above them. A footing carrying a wall is not the same pour as flatwork. |
| Excavation depth before we hit ground that will hold | Costs more when it runs deep | Every extra foot is dig, spoil to move, and forms to build. Shallow bearing keeps the whole thing simple. |
| Where water goes after rain | Costs more if it sits | Standing water against a foundation means grading, drains or a slope correction included in the work. |
| Access that crosses a finished driveway, patio or lawn | Costs more | Protecting or replacing what we drive across is real work, and it belongs in the bid rather than in a surprise later. |
Compare bids line by line, not by the total. Ask each contractor what thickness they are pouring, what reinforcement is included, who hauls the demolition, and what happens if the excavation opens up something unexpected. The bids that answer those clearly are the ones you can actually compare.
Yes. Slope changes the layout, not the possibility. We cut and fill to reach a level bearing surface, step the footings down the grade where the drop is steep, and set drainage so water leaves the slab rather than collecting behind it. Forms get braced heavier where the grade falls away, since wet concrete pushes hard against the low side. The rebar follows the steps, and we shoot every elevation before the truck arrives.
Yes, though the honest version is that buyers notice foundations mainly when something is wrong. A sound, documented repair takes the problem off the inspection report, and that report is the document a buyer reads closest. Level slab, clean concrete work and paperwork that matches read as maintenance done on time. Cracking left alone reads as a negotiation. We keep records so you have something to hand over.
Yes on the permit, in most cases. Work inside the city goes through the City of Marietta, and structural repair is the kind of job that gets reviewed rather than waved through. The engineer's letter depends on scope. Underpinning, added piers and anything carrying load usually calls for stamped drawings, while sealing a non-structural crack often does not. We prepare the submission and pull the permit ourselves.
Cracks that keep opening, doors and windows that stick on one side of the house, a slab that has dropped at a corner, and water finding the joint where slab meets wall. Those are the calls, here and on the jobs we run over in Smyrna. Housing spans a wide range of build years, so an older house near the Square and a newer one rarely fail the same way.
Concrete keeps gaining strength long after it looks finished, and framing does not wait for the end of that curve. We judge readiness by the mix design, the conditions during the pour and how the slab behaves in the first stretch afterward, then release it for load. Load it too early and you buy cracking that no repair fully erases. Ask at the pour and we will walk you through where yours stands.
Shape, width and movement. Shrinkage cracks from curing tend to be fine, to wander across the slab, and to stay exactly where they started. Settlement shows offset: one side sitting lower than the other, often widening toward the top, or running stair-step through block. We measure the width, mark the ends, and come back to see whether it has traveled. A crack that grows is telling you something.