A slab that has settled, cracked or gone rough does not always need replacing. We are a concrete contractor working out of Marietta, and a good share of what we do is repair, leveling and resurfacing: lifting a sunken panel back to grade, cutting out a failed section and tying new concrete into old, or putting a fresh wearing surface over a slab whose bones are still sound. The test is whether the base underneath is stable. If it is, the slab is usually worth saving.
Deciding that takes a look at the whole picture, not just the crack. We check where water goes, whether the panels have moved against each other, how thick the pour is at the edges, and whether there is wire mesh or rebar doing anything down there. A hairline crack in a driveway that still drains and still sits flat is cosmetic. A quarter inch of lip across a sidewalk is a trip hazard and a sign the ground moved.
Most failures trace back to what happened before the pour. Slab too thin, no reinforcement, base never compacted, control joints cut late or not cut at all. Around the Marietta Square, where retail and restaurant frontage puts steady foot traffic on the sidewalk, that shows up as spalling and edges that break away under the weight. On residential drives it shows up as settlement near the apron, where the ground was disturbed once and never packed back down properly.
Getting it right costs time on the front end. Sawing clean square edges instead of feathering into a ragged break, hauling out the old material, compacting the base, setting rebar or wire mesh so the new work has something to hold onto. Resurfacing over a slab that is still moving will look good for a season, then telegraph every crack underneath. We would rather say that plainly at the start than pour over a problem and leave you looking at it again.
Stamped concrete complicates a repair, because the patch has to match a pattern and a color that have been weathering in the sun for years. We pour new stamped work, and we blend into existing stamped surfaces, though on a badly faded slab a full resurface usually reads better than a patch ever will. We cover Marietta and the metro Atlanta towns around it, Smyrna included, along the corridors that carry commuter traffic toward Atlanta. Call for a free estimate on repair, leveling or resurfacing.
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Cracked and settled flatwork usually has a cause under it: a void, a washed out base, a root lifting one side of a joint. We raise sunken sections back to grade, saw out failed panels, and bond overlays onto surfaces that are worn or scaled but still sound. A spalling concrete sidewalk panel gets replaced rather than skimmed. Where the slab is broken clean through, resurfacing only hides it, and we say so before any patch goes down.
Replacement starts underneath. We break out the old driveway, compact the subgrade, set a graded stone base, and place four inches of concrete, six at the apron where vehicles turn and load. Rebar sits on chairs or 6x6 wire mesh is lifted off the ground, tied in place, never thrown in behind the pour. Control joints are cut early at spacing the slab thickness calls for, so the concrete cracks on a line instead of across the middle.
Finish work shows here more than anywhere. Stamped concrete takes a pattern off a fresh surface and holds it only if color hardener, release and timing are handled right, so we place and stamp in one continuous run. Broom texture, exposed aggregate and integrally colored slabs all come off the same pour. Steps, seat walls and a grill pad tie into the slab, poured together so no cold joint runs through the middle of the space.
Walls fail at the base and behind the face, rarely on the front. We excavate below grade for a compacted leveling course, set the first block dead level, then backfill with washed stone and perforated pipe so water leaves instead of loading the wall. Taller runs get geogrid layers tied back into the fill. Poured walls take rebar mats and forms braced to hold line under a full pour, backfilled once the concrete has real strength.
Shop floors, garage and shed pads, dumpster slabs, generator and HVAC bases: each gets sized for what sits on it, usually four to six inches with rebar matched to the load and the traffic. Commercial concrete near Marietta Square means pouring against retail and restaurant frontage in tight windows, keeping a sidewalk open and walkable while the work cures. Talk to a concrete contractor about mix, thickness and reinforcement before the forms go in, not after.
A job starts with a walk of the site. We measure the area, watch where water goes when it rains, and figure out what the old slab was doing before it gave up. Cracking tells one story, settlement tells another, and the repair is different for each. Access matters as much as anything: where the truck can park, how far the chute reaches, whether the mix has to be wheeled in. Everything that comes later is built on that first look.
After the walk you get the scope in writing. Square footage, slab thickness, reinforcement, joint layout, the finish, and how the new pour ties into whatever stays. We would rather answer your questions then than halfway through a pour, when the answer costs somebody a day. If a line in the plan does not make sense to you, say so, and we will either explain why it is there or change it. Most decisions that matter on a concrete installation get made before anyone mixes anything.
Demolition comes first on a replacement. We break out the old slab, load it, haul it off, and protect what stays: irrigation heads, gas service, the lawn edge, the apron next door. Old driveways sometimes hide something underneath. A buried stump, a soft pocket where a trench was backfilled and never compacted, a layer of gravel somebody dumped in twenty years ago. When we find one, you hear about it and about what it changes before we keep going, not after.
Grading is the part nobody sees and everybody feels. We cut the base to the depth the slab needs, compact it, and set the fall so water sheets off instead of standing. Forms go in next, staked and strung to the marked line, then checked for elevation at every stake. A slab is only as flat as the forms holding it, and a bad form line is permanent. Sidewalks show it worst, because people cross them at the same slow pace every single day.
Rebar or wire mesh goes in tied and sitting on chairs, held inside the slab instead of lying on the dirt. Steel on the ground does nothing at all. Pour day runs early. We place, screed and bull float in one continuous pass, because concrete keeps its own schedule and the weather that morning sets the pace for the crew. Everybody has one job and stays on it. Nobody stops for lunch in the middle of a truck.
Finish work is where the surface gets its character, and the window for it is narrow. A broom finish is the usual choice on a concrete driveway: it holds traction and it hides wear. Stamped and colored concrete take longer, since the pattern has to be pressed while the slab is still workable and the release has to come off clean. Exposed aggregate gets washed back to bring the stone up. Control joints are cut on a spacing matched to thickness, which is how you choose where cracks go.
Curing is waiting, and the waiting is part of the work. Foot traffic can go on well before a vehicle can, and parking on green concrete is the quickest way to ruin a good pour. You get the dates in plain language before we leave. Nearly every failure we are called to look at traces back to something skipped in the first two days: no compaction, no steel, joints cut late or never cut. None of it shows on day one.
We work Marietta and the rest of metro Atlanta, including Atlanta, Smyrna, Kennesaw and Roswell, on the same terms everywhere. Commercial jobs around Marietta Square, where retail and restaurant frontage runs right up to the walk, get staged around business hours so no doorway sits closed longer than the pour requires. Along the commuter corridors that run toward Atlanta we keep lanes open and equipment tight to the curb. Call for a free estimate.
We do not keep a public tally, and any figure we gave you would be one you could not check. What we can describe is the work itself: concrete driveways, sidewalk installation, patios, and commercial flatwork near the Marietta Square, where retail and restaurant frontage means pours happen around people. Ask about a job like yours and we will walk you through how we would approach it.
Yes. Older concrete brings its own questions: what sits under the slab, whether the original pour had rebar or wire mesh in it, and how the ground has settled since. We look at the existing slab before recommending anything, because tear-out and replacement is not always the right call. Leveling or resurfacing sometimes gives you a sound surface with far less disruption to the property.
No. A single cracked concrete sidewalk panel is real work to us, and small pours make up a good share of what we do. Small does not mean shortcuts: the subgrade gets prepared, the reinforcement goes in, and the finish is matched to what already sits next to it. If a job feels too minor to call about, call anyway.
That depends on the size of the pour, the weather, and whether the work needs a permit from the City of Marietta, which runs on its own timeline rather than ours. Our schedule moves week to week. Call and describe the site, the square footage, and what the concrete is doing now, and we will tell you plainly where things stand.
Short. The commuter corridors running toward Atlanta are roads we are on constantly, including the stretch we take through Smyrna. Traffic sets the clock more than mileage does, so we schedule site visits around the heavy hours instead of fighting through them. The drive is part of an ordinary working day here, and it changes nothing about how we do the concrete work.