Concrete parking lot building in Lincoln CA - pavement planned for heavy trucks

Most owners call us because an old asphalt or gravel lot keeps cracking, sinking or holding puddles, or because a new building needs parking before it can open. The price moves with the lot's size, the ground under it and the traffic it has to carry, and the schedule usually turns more on plan review and permits than on the pour itself. If old pavement has to come out first, concrete cutting is often where the job starts. I walk the site with you, explain what I see and put the whole estimate in writing, so you have real numbers to compare.

I start every lot the way I used to start a dinner service, with the plan, because once the concrete truck shows up there's no starting over. We map where heavy trucks and dumpster pickups will drive and stop, so those lanes and pads get a thicker slab and more steel from the beginning instead of patches later. Then we dig down to firm subgrade, the native soil the slab sits on, and pack a rock base in layers rather than raking the dirt level, because a base that isn't compacted settles and takes the slab down with it. We check where the rain will run so water heads to the drains and away from the building, set the forms and place rebar, steel bars that hold the slab together if it cracks. We pour early in the day to stay out of the midday heat that leaves a weak, dusty top, give it a broom finish, a light ridged texture so tires and shoes grip when it's wet, and cut control joints, shallow grooves that give the concrete a straight place to crack, before it cracks somewhere nobody chose. If the budget gets tight, I'd rather spend it on the base than on a fancy surface, because the base is the one part you can't fix later.

Lots often need work around the edges too. Light poles, sign posts and dumpster enclosure walls each sit on concrete footings that we can pour while the crew is already on site. If the building next to the lot has settled, foundation raising is worth looking at before we set the new grade, so the lot meets the doorways at the right height.

Drainage paperwork is often the long pole on a Lincoln lot, because a parking lot is a big hard surface that sends rain somewhere. When a project has to include stormwater and trash controls, the City of Lincoln wants a final stormwater quality plan in place before it issues the building permit, and a preliminary plan goes in earlier with the project's application. Whether your lot falls under that rule depends on the project, so before we start we check with the city office that covers your address, and when a permit is needed we take care of the paperwork and inspections with you. You can see how the steps line up on the city's stormwater program page.

The ground is the other thing to plan around. Across the low-lying western part of Placer County, from Rocklin out to the county line, much of the soil has moderate to high shrink-swell, clay that swells when it's wet and shrinks as it dries, so on those sites I dig deeper, build a thicker packed base and grade water well away from the slab. We see the same ground on jobs in Rocklin and Roseville. Frost isn't a design worry here, since the city lists no frost line among its design criteria.