Concrete Sidewalk Building in Medford MA - a walk that holds up through winter

Most people call because the old walk has heaved, flaked or started holding puddles, and they're tired of stepping around it every winter. The price mostly comes down to the length and width of the walk, whether the old one has to be broken out and hauled away, whether cars cross it, and whether it ties into the City sidewalk or curb, which adds permit work that we take care of. The schedule turns on that permit, the weather and the time of year, so the earlier we talk, the more choice you have on a date. Your written estimate spells out what's included and what isn't, so you know where your own number comes from.

If the walk meets the City sidewalk or curb, we sort out that part and the city paperwork before anyone digs, because that's what most often holds a job up. Then our crew breaks out the old walk, digs down to the subgrade, which is the soil the slab sits on, and packs a gravel base on top so the new walk doesn't settle with loose dirt. We set the forms with a slight pitch away from the house, pour early in the day so the top doesn't dry too fast in the heat and turn weak and dusty, and give it a broom finish, a light texture that gives your shoes grip when it's wet. We cut control joints, shallow lines across the slab, so that when the concrete shrinks and cracks the way concrete does, it cracks along a line we chose. Before we leave, I go over how to treat the new slab through its first winter so it gets a fair start.

Sidewalk work often comes with a job next door to it. If the walk ends at a garage with a cracked or sunken floor, we can look at garage floor concrete on the same visit, and if you'd like color or a pattern instead of plain gray, decorative concrete can be worked into the walk.

If your walk ties into a City sidewalk or curb, that part needs a permit from Medford's Engineering Division, and the licensed contractor has to apply for it before opening the ground. We handle that application and tell you up front that we're the ones pulling it, and the division inspects sidewalk work in the City right-of-way, the public strip along the street. The city also issues no new street opening permits between November 15 and April 1 unless a signed special exception is in place, so a walk that meets the street usually has to be planned around that window. For any other part of the job, whether it needs a permit is the building official's call, so we check with the office before we put it on the schedule.

Most of the walks we replace here run in front of older houses, where years of frost, salt and tree roots have lifted and flaked the squares. We dig those out to firm ground instead of patching over them, and we see the same worn walks on jobs in Somerville and Malden.