Concrete Contractors in Flint, MI

Flint is our home market, and concrete contractors working here spend most of their time on houses that went up when the city was growing fast. General Motors was founded in Flint in 1908, Buick and Chevrolet built their big plants here, and the population climbed to 196,940 by the 1960 census. The 2020 census counted 81,252 people and 40,578 housing units. That gap tells you a lot about the city's concrete: driveways, front walks, stoops and garage floors that were poured for a much bigger city and have now been through many decades of Michigan winters. We pour new driveways, patios, sidewalks and steps, garage and shed slabs, and we repair or replace concrete that has cracked, sunk or scaled.

Neighborhoods with their own kind of concrete

Flint is a city of distinct neighborhoods, and each one tends to bring a different job.

Carriage Town and the Grand Traverse Street District. North and south of the river near downtown, both have many well-preserved Victorian homes, and both were centers of the carriage industry until the 1920s. On these blocks the work is usually a front walk, a set of porch steps or a narrow drive beside the house. Setbacks are tight and old foundations sit close to the pour, so forming and base prep take more care than on a newer lot.

Civic Park, Sugar Hill, Floral Park, Kent and Elm Parks. These are among the city's historic districts. Civic Park received its own share of the state Hardest Hit demolition and greening money awarded in 2013, so some blocks there now mix occupied homes with cleared lots. Owners who are staying and investing often want a new drive or walk that brings the house back up to standard.

Mott Park, Woodcroft Estates and the East Side. On the West Side and in East Side areas such as East Village and the blocks near the Applewood Mott Estate and the Cultural Center, the requests we hear most are slab replacement under detached garages, side patios and driveway widening.

Snow, freeze and a long cold season

Flint averages 52.1 inches of snow a year, and the 2017 and 2018 winter brought 85.3 inches. The average freeze window runs from about October 8 to May 7, and the January mean low is 16 degrees. That long stretch of freezing nights is what breaks down exterior concrete. Water gets into small cracks and joints, freezes, expands and pops the surface. Salt makes it worse.

So every exterior pour we do starts with drainage and a solid base. Driveways should shed water toward the street or yard, not toward the garage slab. Patios need fall away from the foundation. We use air-entrained mixes for outdoor work, cut control joints at the right spacing, and plan the pour date around the weather so new concrete is not left to freeze before it has cured.

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Working in the public right-of-way

If your project reaches the public sidewalk or the street, the City of Flint has its own process. Sidewalk, excavation and pavement-break work in the right-of-way is permitted through the Department of Transportation's Street Maintenance Division at 702 West 12th Street. The city's permit form cites an ordinance allowing the Department of Public Works, a licensed and bonded sidewalk builder, or the lot owner to replace up to three sidewalk squares, and it puts the responsibility on the contractor to call for the final inspection. City code also allows the section of a private driveway between the curb and the public walk to be built in asphalt over a crushed limestone base as an alternate to concrete, so check what your approach is made of before you plan to match it.

We pull what the job needs and schedule the inspection, so the work is on record and nothing has to be torn out later.

After the service line work

After the water crisis that began in April 2014, the city installed copper service lines to nearly every home. On a lot of streets that work cut through drive approaches, walks and lawns. If a patch on your property has sunk or the replacement concrete does not match, we can saw-cut the damaged area and replace it cleanly, or replace the whole run if the old concrete around the patch was already failing.

Call (810) 428-0447 to set up a visit anywhere in Flint, from Carriage Town to Mott Park to the north side neighborhoods near the old Buick City site.