Concrete Contractors in Rolling Meadows, IL

Rolling Meadows is a small city, about 5.6 square miles, and a lot of its concrete is older than most of the people who call concrete contractors about it. The first residents moved into Kimball Hill homes in 1953, about 700 houses had sold by 1955, and the city incorporated that same year. That gives Rolling Meadows a different mix of concrete problems than the newer suburbs around it.

How the city started

The land had an earlier life. In 1927 H. D. "Curly" Brown bought 1,000 acres here for a golf course and racetrack. Kimball Hill acquired the land in the early 1950s and began selling houses, mostly to blue-collar families. By 1960 the census counted 10,879 residents, and 19,178 by 1970. The 2020 count was 24,200 people in 9,780 housing units.

Housing data from the American Community Survey on Point2Homes shows the mark that left: 26.6% of homes were built in the 1950s, the largest single decade, followed by 24.3% in the 1970s and 14.7% in the 1980s. The median year built is 1973.

Reading an old slab

Concrete from the 1950s can be thinner than today's suburban standards call for, may lack entrained air, and may sit on little or no stone. After seventy-odd winters, the usual symptoms are:

• Scaling: the top quarter inch flakes off, often worst where salt sits
• Settling: a garage floor or walk drops along one edge because the fill underneath compressed or washed out
• Heaving: a section lifts at a joint and becomes a trip edge
• Spider cracking: a web of fine cracks across the surface, usually from the original finish

Scaling and fine cracking on a level slab can often be cleaned, repaired and sealed. Settling and heaving usually point to a base problem, and patching the top will not stop the movement.

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When replacement makes sense

We walk the whole slab, not just the worst crack. If two or three panels have dropped but the rest are flat, we can sometimes remove and repour just those panels with a proper compacted base and dowels into the old concrete. If the driveway pitches toward the garage, holds water or has broken into many pieces, a full tear-out is usually the better use of your money. When we replace, we pour air-entrained concrete on compacted gravel and cut control joints so the new slab cracks where we decide, not where it wants.

Salt Creek and drainage

Salt Creek runs through the area, and settlers had dammed it by the early 1840s, more than a century before the subdivisions. On a residential lot the concern is simpler: water collecting next to a walk, stoop or garage slab softens the base. When we replace a front stoop or walk in Rolling Meadows we check how downspouts discharge and set the new grade to move water away.

Shop floors and garages

Rolling Meadows also has a working side. An industrial park opened on North Hicks Road in 1958, and Western Electric later ran a facility here that employed about 1,500 people. At home, a garage that doubles as a workshop needs more than a car slab: a thicker pour where a workbench or heavy tools will sit, a vapor barrier under an attached garage, and a slope toward the overhead door so meltwater leaves. We also pour shed pads and detached garage floors for owners adding storage space.

Services for Rolling Meadows homes

• Concrete repair & replacement for 1950s and 1970s slabs
• Concrete driveways replaced panel-by-panel or in full
• Sidewalks & steps, including stoops that have pulled away from the house
• Garage & shed slabs with a proper base
• Concrete patios and stamped concrete for backyards

Call (224) 494-2266 and we will come look.