What concrete driveways means in Augusta
A residential driveway is a four inch slab over a compacted base, and six inches where anything heavier than a pickup will park on it. Those extra two inches are the difference between a slab that spreads a wheel load and one that cracks under it.
Reinforcement is either welded wire mesh set on chairs at mid-depth or fibre in the mix. Mesh lying on the ground under the pour does nothing at all, and it is the most common thing we find when we break out a failed driveway.
Augusta sits on red Piedmont clay with a high kaolin content, and that clay is plastic: it swells when it takes water and shrinks when it dries out. A slab bearing directly on it rides that movement, which is why the stone base under a driveway here is doing as much work as the concrete above it.
- Thickness
- 5 inches residential, 6 inches where a truck parks
- Mix
- 4,000 psi, air-entrained, fibre or #4 bar at 18 inches on centre
- Ready to use
- cars off for 7 days, no heavy trucks for 28
- Typical cost
- $6–$10 per square foot plain, $10–$18 stamped
- Service life
- 30–40 years
How concrete driveways is poured
The base is the job. Six to eight inches of compacted crushed stone, plate-compacted in lifts rather than dumped and raked, because a slab is only as flat as what it sits on stays.
Forms go in with a fall of about a quarter inch per foot away from the house and away from the garage door. Water that cannot leave a driveway will find the garage or the foundation.
Control joints get cut or tooled at intervals of roughly 24 to 30 times the slab thickness, which on a four inch slab means every eight to ten feet, and every panel kept close to square. A long thin panel cracks across its middle no matter how good the concrete is.
Where the driveway meets the garage slab and the sidewalk it gets an isolation joint, so the two can move independently instead of one dragging a crack through the other.
What concrete driveways costs in Augusta, GA
A plain broom-finished driveway is the baseline price. Removal of the old one, base repair, and anything decorative are the three lines that move a quote, and removal is often the biggest of them.
A plain broom-finished driveway in the Augusta market runs $6–$10 per square foot. Breaking out and hauling an old reinforced slab is a separate line and on a two-car drive it is often the largest one.
Where concrete driveways goes wrong in GA
Concrete cracks. The job is to decide where. A driveway with no control joints will still crack at eight to ten foot intervals, just in a random line across the middle instead of in a straight tooled one.
The Augusta-specific version is a driveway poured over clay that was wet when the base went in. The stone gets pressed into the clay instead of sitting on it, the drainage layer stops draining, and the slab moves with the seasons.
Where we do concrete driveways
We cover Augusta, Columbia County and the South Carolina side of the CSRA, including and 34 more areas.
Questions we get asked about concrete driveways
How thick should a driveway be?
Four inches for cars, six where a truck, RV or trailer will sit. Over a soft base, six regardless.
Will it crack?
Somewhere, yes. Control joints decide where, so the cracking happens in a straight line you chose rather than a random one.
How soon can I drive on it?
Foot traffic at 24 to 48 hours, cars at seven days, anything heavy at 28 days when the concrete reaches its design strength.
Get a free quote
Tell us what you need. We answer the same day, and the on-site visit is free.
Get a price for your concrete driveways
Call (762) 320-6343 and we will come out, measure, and leave you a written quote. There is no charge for the visit and no obligation afterwards.