Concrete Contractors in Palatine, IL

Palatine homeowners who call concrete contractors usually have one of three things in mind: a cracked driveway, a patio that sheds water toward the house, or a garage floor that has sunk at the door. We handle all three in Palatine, and the village makes the job easier to plan because it publishes a clear handout for concrete driveways, sidewalks, patios and garage floors.

Built on wet ground

Wikipedia describes Palatine as sitting in wooded marshland where several streams begin. Salt Creek rises at Wilke Marsh on the east side, the northeast drains toward Buffalo Creek, and a small piece of the east and southeast drains toward McDonald Creek. Ground like this holds water, and water under a slab is what lets it move. That is why the base under your concrete matters as much as the concrete itself.

The village handout agrees. It calls for at least 4 inches of graded, compacted gravel under sidewalks, patios and driveways, and it rules out pea gravel, which rolls instead of locking together. Garage floors get a 6-mil vapor barrier over at least 4 inches of compacted gravel.

Joint rules that prevent random cracks

Concrete shrinks as it cures and moves with temperature, so it will crack somewhere. Control joints decide where. Palatine's handout requires contraction joints that are formed, sawed or tooled at spacing per ACI 332, cut to at least one quarter of the slab depth, with panels no more than 1.5 times longer than they are wide. Where new concrete meets a foundation, it calls for a half-inch isolation joint with flexible sealant on top. We lay out joints on paper before the pour so they line up with corners, doors and steps.

Thickness and mix

The handout sets minimums by use: private walks and patios at least 4 inches, and public walks plus driveways and aprons in the parkway at least 5 inches, all air-entrained at 3,500 psi. Air entrainment puts tiny bubbles in the paste that give freezing water room to expand. Palatine averages about 38.5 inches of snow a year with a January mean low near 13 degrees, so that air is not optional here. The village also does not allow wire mesh in the parkway apron or public walk area.

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Where your slab can go

Patios and walks under 16 inches above grade must stay at least 2 feet from side and rear lot lines. Driveways also keep 2 feet off interior side and rear lines unless they are shared. Driveway width at the lot line runs from 5 to 25 feet, and the widest point can reach 30 feet for a two-car garage or 35 feet for a three-car. The handout also says to pitch patios and walks away from the building and not to drain onto a neighbor's lot. HOA approval, if your subdivision has one, is on the homeowner.

When the walk out front is the village's job

Palatine's Public Works Department runs a 50/50 Sidewalk Replacement Program each year, splitting the cost of public sidewalk replacement with homeowners. If your problem is the public walk along the street rather than your own front walk, ask the village about that program first. We focus on the private side: your walk, steps, driveway and patio.

Palatine housing and what it needs

Palatine went from 26,050 residents in 1970 to 65,479 in 2000. ACS figures on Point2Homes put 27.1% of homes in the 1970s and 18.3% in the 1980s, with a median year built of 1977. A lot of those garages and patios are now 40 to 50 years old. Common work here includes:

• Garage & shed slabs: replacing sunken garage floors with a vapor barrier and fresh base
• Concrete patios and stamped concrete to replace small original pads
• Concrete driveways and aprons to the village width and thickness rules
• Sidewalks & steps and concrete repair & replacement where sections have heaved

Call (224) 494-2266 for a free look at your project.