Concrete Driveways

Concrete Driveways in Antioch, IL

New drives, full replacements and section repairs around Antioch and the Chain of Lakes. We check the Village rules before drawing it, submit the permit, and haul the old concrete away. Free estimate on site.

Get my estimate

The drive is the part of a property that takes the most abuse and gets the least thought. It carries a vehicle every day, it holds whatever comes off the tyres in February, and it sits on ground that lifts and drops with the season. Get the preparation right and it is a twenty-year surface. Get it wrong and no amount of good concrete on top will save it.

What you get

• A first drive - replacing gravel, or laying a surface on a bare plot.
• A full tear-out and replacement, old slab away and a new one down.
• The section at the kerb, sized and set to what the Village permits, with the application filed by us.
• One panel replaced where the surrounding concrete has plenty left in it.
• More space - widening, a turnaround, a parking pad for the second vehicle or the trailer.

How it works

Why homeowners here call us

• We file the permit and meet the inspections. We also price the work against what the Code allows at the kerb, so the drive you agree to is the drive you can have.
• The insurance certificate arrives without being chased. Nobody has vetted the crew standing on your property except you, so ask us and ask everyone else too.
• Concrete is the whole of what we do. A sound slab that has simply dropped is a lifting job, cheaper than a pour and a different trade, and you will hear that from us on the day rather than never.

Nobody registers your contractor here

Worth saying plainly, because most people assume the opposite. Antioch does not run a contractor registration or licensing scheme. A permit is issued against the work, not against the person carrying it out.

That is unusual for this part of Lake County and it moves the checking onto you. There is no list to be on and no municipal vetting sitting behind a name on a van, so the questions worth asking are the plain ones:

• Ask for the certificate of insurance, and ask that it come from the insurer rather than as a photograph on a phone.
• Ask who submits the application, and who stands there at the inspection.
• Ask, in writing, what happens if an inspection does not pass the first time.
• Ask what is being poured, at what thickness, and over how much compacted base.

We answer all four before anybody asks. Put them to everyone you have out, though: a bid that goes quiet on the last one is telling you something.

Where the money actually goes

A drive is mostly four decisions, and it pays to know which of them a cheaper number has been reached by changing.

• Thickness. The gap between a nominal four inches and a genuine four inches right across the slab is invisible on the day and decisive later.
• The base beneath it. Compacted stone at a proper depth is what actually holds a drive up, and it is the easiest thing in the build to quietly thin.
• Reinforcement. Mesh, bar or neither. None of it stops concrete cracking; it decides what a crack does next, which is a different and more useful promise.
• Finish and joints. A broom finish and a stamped one are not the same day's work, and jointing a long drive is a design decision rather than a default.

Where we work

Antioch is the base, and the work runs out around the lakes from there - Lake Villa and Lindenhurst to the south, Fox Lake west, Spring Grove further out along the Wisconsin line, and Winthrop Harbor and Old Mill Creek east. Each one has its own paperwork for work near the road, which is why we settle whose rules apply before quoting.

If you would rather read first

It is all written up, in rather more depth than a conversation on your doorstep allows:

• what a drive costs here, and how the Village prices the permit
• replace, resurface or repair
• the Village permit, the curb width rule and who checks your contractor
• concrete against asphalt over twenty years

Back garden on the list too? Our concrete patio work is priced at the same visit.