Concrete patio construction in Liberal KS - a slab that sheds rain instead of holding it

Most of the calls we get are about an old patio that's cracked, sunk or holding water by the back door, or a bare spot you'd like to sit out on, sometimes with a walk leading to it. The price moves with the size of the slab, whether old concrete has to be broken out and hauled off, the finish you choose and how close we can get to the spot, while the schedule turns mostly on the weather and what the city needs from us. I'll give you your own figure in a written estimate that explains what's included.

We start by marking out the patio with you so the size and shape fit how you'll use it, then set the forms, the boards that hold the edges while the concrete sets. I pay close attention to the slope at this stage, so water runs away from the slab and off toward the yard instead of sitting on it or heading for the house. Before any concrete arrives, I go over with you where the control joints will go. Those are the grooves we cut so the slab cracks along a line we picked, and planning them is how we keep the cracks where we want them. Then we pour, finish the top, cut the joints, keep the slab curing and clean up before we leave.

A patio rarely stands alone. If you need a way to reach it from the driveway or side gate, we can pour that path as part of our concrete sidewalk building, and if you'd like the slab to carry a pattern that looks like stone or brick, our stamped concrete services do that on a new patio.

Liberal's building code rates the weathering here as severe, which puts a patio through freezing and thawing over and over. Concrete that stays soaked through those cycles is prone to flaking, which is why the slope I described matters so much here. One maker's guide advises a broom or float finish on outside slabs, because steel troweling to a slick finish reduces the air in the surface, so for a patio facing our winters, broom or float is the practical choice.

The City of Liberal requires permits for many kinds of building and construction work, and its application list includes a concrete permit, but that list doesn't settle whether your patio needs one. We check with the city's Building and Code Enforcement Department about your project, take care of the permit when one is required and tell you what we learn. The city also offers consultations on homeowner projects if you'd like to talk the plan over with them first. We get the same patio calls across Liberal and the cities around it, mostly older slabs behind houses that have seen a lot of winters.