Concrete Contractor in Bay Minette, AL - Slabs built on a packed base

Check with the city before the pour, because Building Department staff in Bay Minette's Planning & Development Services Department handle building permits and inspections and can tell you what your job needs. They're on the second floor of City Hall, and (251) 580-1610 is the number for permit questions and inspection scheduling. When your job needs a permit, we help with the paperwork and work with that office for you.

A contractor needs a license from the Alabama Home Builders Licensure Board to build, remodel, repair or improve a house when the job costs more than $10,000, counting labor and materials, unless the work falls outside the board's jurisdiction. Inside city limits, business licenses go through Bay Minette's City Clerk, and an earlier year's city fee schedule required a Certificate of Insurance for construction licenses, so asking a contractor for proof of insurance is fair. We're fully licensed and insured, and you're welcome to ask us for proof.

For houses, the code list the city set in 2022 includes the International Residential Code plus Bay Minette's own supplemental code for residential structures, which applies on top of it. The state's construction management office has no jurisdiction over residential property, so for your house the city's codes are the ones that count. The Building Department can tell you which parts apply to a driveway, patio or slab.

Search your address on AlabamaFlood, which offers FEMA's regulatory floodplain data by address or by county. It's worth a look before you plan a slab, because a lot that sits low or takes water changes how much fill and base we put under it and which way we slope it. Tell us what you find when you call, and we'll go over it with you on site.

Most of the cracking and sinking we tear out comes from the base, the dirt the slab sits on, when it was raked level and never dug out and packed, so it settled and the slab went with it. Water running under the slab, a pour in midday summer heat that leaves the top weak and dusty, and joints cut late or skipped make it worse. We pack the base, slope it away from your house, pour early in the day and saw control joints, shallow cuts that give the slab a straight line to crack along, so the cracks that do come land where we chose.

Your price comes from a written estimate on your lot, because the size, the tear-out and the base work change a lot from one property to the next here. A long driveway, a thicker slab for trucks and trailers, a stamped or colored finish and rebar, which is steel set inside the slab to hold it together, all add to it. You stay off it while it cures, and before we pour we'll tell you when it's safe to walk on and when you can drive on it.