Concrete sidewalk building in San Gabriel CA - a walk that sheds rain and isn't slick

Most sidewalk calls I get are about a walk that's cracked, sunk at one end or holding water after it rains, and usually the fix is tearing it out and building it again on a proper base. The price moves with the size of the walk, whether there's old concrete to break out and haul away, how much digging and packing the ground needs, and the finish you pick. The schedule mostly turns on whether the walk runs along the street, because that's city land and it means a permit and an inspection before we can pour. You get your own figure when I come out and look at it.

First we break out the old walk and haul it off, then dig down to firm ground and pack the subgrade, the soil the slab sits on, so it's even all the way across, because a base that's just raked level settles and takes the concrete down with it. Before the forms go in I check where the water goes, so the walk is sloped to shed rain and doesn't fall back toward your house. We pour early in the day, since concrete placed in midday heat dries too fast on top and turns weak and dusty later. Then we give it a broom finish, a light brushed texture, so it won't get slick in the rain, and we clean up before we leave. If the budget's tight, the base is the last place I'd cut, because nobody sees it on pour day but it decides whether you end up paying for this walk twice.

A sidewalk often ties into other work. If the walk ends at a garage with a cracked or sinking slab, we can take on the garage floor concrete as part of the same job, and if you'd like color or a pattern instead of plain gray, that's decorative concrete, as long as the surface still grips when it's wet.

If your walk runs along the street, it's on city land, and the San Gabriel Engineering Division issues the permit for any work there. The city then inspects the work and wants at least two working days' notice to book that inspection, and larger permit projects also need a meeting with the city's public works staff before any work along the street can start. So we line up the paperwork and the inspection first and set the pour date after. For a walk that stays on your own lot, I'd check with the city before we start, and either way we settle with you up front who handles any permit the city asks for and what it needs from us.

A lot of the older walks we tear out around here have sunk in spots or tipped so rain runs back toward the house, usually after years of patching. We see the same thing on jobs in Alhambra and Temple City, and we fix it the same way, by rebuilding the base and the slope instead of patching the top.