Frequently asked questions

The honest short answer: walk on it after 24 hours, light vehicle traffic after 7 days, full strength at 28 days.

Concrete reaches its design strength asymptotically. It hits roughly 70% of design strength at 7 days and 99% at 28 days. For a typical 25 MPa driveway that means after 7 days it'll handle a car comfortably; after 28 days it'll handle anything you'd reasonably drive on a driveway.

What you should not do during that window: heavy vehicles (trucks, trailers loaded with bricks), turning the wheels while the car is stationary (tyre scuff marks set permanently), or letting it dry out completely — we apply curing compound or wet hessian for the first few days for a reason.

The visible parts — truck of concrete, pour, finish — are roughly comparable between quotes. The differences hide in the parts you don't see:

• Base preparation. The single biggest variable. Properly compacted, levelled, falls cut for drainage, road base laid where needed. A cheap quote often skips most of this.
• Reinforcement spec. Mesh or rebar, size, and how it's actually elevated off the base (bar chairs vs. "pushed up during the pour" — only one of those works).
• Concrete strength. 20, 25, 32, 40 MPa — the higher the strength the more cement and more cost. A driveway quote at 20 MPa is cutting a real corner.
• Joints. Saw-cut crack-control joints at the right spacing prevent random cracking. Some quotes skip them entirely.
• Demo and tipping. If old concrete needs to come out, is that in the quote or extra?

Cheap quotes are usually cheap for a reason. The savings show up in the slab failing in 5 years instead of 30.

The finish is the texture of the top 1-2 mm of the slab. It affects looks, grip and maintenance.

• Broom finish — pulled across the wet surface with a soft broom. Slightly rough, good grip when wet, hides minor imperfections. Most common driveway finish.
• Trowel finish — smoothed flat with a steel trowel. Looks clean, but slippery when wet — usually only for indoor or under-cover slabs.
• Exposed aggregate — decorative stone embedded in the mix, surface washed back to expose them. Excellent grip, hard-wearing, more visual interest. Costs more.
• Stamped — patterns pressed into the wet surface (stone, brick, slate look). Decorative, needs sealing every 2-3 years.
• Polished — mechanically ground after curing to a smooth/glossy finish. Indoor or covered outdoor only.

Concrete is extremely strong in compression and weak in tension. Anything that bends, flexes or carries point loads needs reinforcement to handle the tensile forces.

For a domestic driveway, that's SL72 or SL82 mesh (a steel grid) properly elevated off the base on bar chairs so it sits in the middle of the slab. For heavier loads — a commercial slab, a slab carrying a structure, or a thick driveway — you step up to rebar.

The most common mistake we fix on other people's work: mesh laid directly on the base and "pulled up" during the pour. It doesn't get pulled up. It stays on the base, where it does almost nothing.

Those are crack-control joints. Concrete shrinks as it cures — that's physics, not a defect. If we don't give the shrinkage a place to crack, it'll crack somewhere random. So we cut deliberate grooves at calculated intervals (typically every 3-4 metres for a driveway) and the cracks form there, hidden in the joint.

If you see a driveway with random hairline cracks running across it, that's usually a slab where the joints were skipped or spaced too far apart.

It's the design compressive strength of the concrete at 28 days — how much load per square area it can take before crushing. Higher number = stronger (and more expensive).

Rough guide for jobs we do:

• 20 MPa — suitable only for paths and very light-duty work.
• 25 MPa — standard for driveways and residential slabs.
• 32 MPa — light commercial, heavier-duty residential.
• 40 MPa+ — commercial floor slabs, structural work.

Your quote should specify the strength. If it doesn't, ask.

Water that ponds on concrete causes long-term problems: staining, moss growth, freeze-thaw damage in cooler areas, and undermining at the edges. Properly poured concrete is never actually flat — it has a small slope (typically 1 in 100, so 10 mm per metre) so water sheds.

Falls are planned at the quoting stage. We figure out where water needs to go and grade the base before any concrete arrives. After the pour, it's too late to change.

Yes, but with adjustments. Concrete chemistry has temperature limits:

• Below 5°C: cure slows dramatically and freezing can damage the slab. Set retarders and insulation needed.
• Above 35°C: concrete sets fast and can crack from rapid surface drying. We pour earlier in the morning, use retarders, and cover with damp hessian.
• Heavy rain forecast: we reschedule. Pouring into rain is not a corner you can cut.

The temperature ranges that matter most depend on your climate — in Brisbane it's almost always the upper end; in Canberra and Melbourne winter pours need extra care.

Yes. We hold the appropriate state building licence for concreting (this is mandatory in most states for work over a small threshold). We carry full public liability insurance and workers compensation. We are happy to show you the certificates — if a quoting concreter won't, that is a red flag.

Honest answer: not exactly, and anyone who promises a perfect match is being optimistic. Concrete colour depends on cement batch, aggregate batch, water content, temperature on the day, and how it's finished. Even pours from the same truck on the same slab can show subtle differences.

We can usually get close on coloured concrete by matching to your existing oxide. For plain concrete, expect a clean colour difference at the joint. Some people frame this as a deliberate feature (defined zones), which often looks better than chasing an impossible perfect match.

For most residential jobs: 10% deposit on acceptance, balance on completion. For larger jobs (over $20,000 or anything that spans multiple weeks) we use progress payments tied to milestones — base prep complete, pour complete, sealing/finishing complete. All written into the contract before work starts.

Under the law in most states, asking for the full amount upfront (or more than a 10-20% deposit) is a red flag. Walk away from anyone who demands it.

Two layers:

• Statutory. Under your state's building act, residential concreting work is covered by a structural warranty for 6 years and a non-structural workmanship warranty for 1-2 years. This applies regardless of what we put in writing.
• Our own. Workmanship for 2 years on all work, 5 years on driveways and major slabs. Structural for the full 6 years. We come back, no argument, if something fails due to our work.

What's not covered: shrinkage hairline cracks (these are normal and don't affect performance), cracks caused by ground movement we couldn't anticipate, or damage caused by overloading (e.g. a concrete truck on a driveway designed for cars).