Concrete patio construction in Santa Clara CA - a patio that drains instead of puddling

Most calls start with a patio that's cracked, sunk at one corner or holding water by the back door, or with bare dirt where you want a table and chairs. The price mostly comes down to the size and shape, how easy it is to get concrete into the back yard, and the finish, since a plain broom finish, brushed for grip when it's wet, costs less than a decorative finish. The schedule turns on the weather and on the permit check for your address, and at the estimate I measure and write out what's included so you can see exactly what you're paying for before anything is poured.

I start by measuring and looking at where water already runs in your yard, because that decides which way the patio should fall. Trouble usually starts where a patio meets the house, a walk or the steps, so we separate each of those with an isolation joint, a soft strip that lets each piece move on its own. We build the slope into the forms so rain runs off instead of sitting there, and all of it is set before the truck shows up, because concrete won't wait for you once it's coming down the chute. On hot weeks we pour early in the day, since a slab finished in midday heat can end up with a weak, dusty top. On pour day our crew places and finishes the slab, brooms the surface and cuts control joints, shallow grooves that give the concrete a straight line to crack along, and then we clean up and take our mess with us.

If you want a pattern or color in the surface, we do stamped concrete as part of the same pour, so it's worth deciding before the forms go in. Plenty of patios also need a way to reach them from the driveway or side gate, and when we build that concrete sidewalk with the patio, we put a joint where the two meet.

Santa Clara requires a building permit to construct any structure, and its list names patio covers and raised decks but not patio slabs, so the list alone doesn't settle whether your patio needs one. The city's Building Division is the office that decides, and I find out where your address stands while I put the estimate together, so you know before we set a pour date.

Parts of Santa Clara sit on the valley's low basin ground, where water had no easy way out until pumping and flood control improved the drainage, and we still meet flat back yards here that hold puddles after a rain. One concrete supplier's guide says outdoor slabs should always slope so water can't pond, since standing water can wear the surface, and on lots like these I set the fall with that in mind. We're based in Santa Clara and work across the cities around it, and we see the same flat, slow-draining yards on jobs in Sunnyvale and Milpitas.