Concrete Contractor in Rochester, MA - Driveways and Slabs Built for Rural Lots

Ask the Rochester Building Department, which issues residential building permits for building, repairing or renovating one and two family homes and for installing pools. Its Building Commissioner enforces the state building code and the local bylaws, so it's the office that can tell you what your job needs. I check that for your job, handle the permit paperwork we're able to file, and tell you early about anything that needs your signature.

Call the Conservation Office before you plan the job, because the Town of Rochester advises checking with it on any project that may affect wetlands, streams, ponds or rivers, and it names driveways, grading and retaining walls among the common ones. Rochester's posted wetlands bylaw calls for written notice and an Order of Conditions, the commission's written terms, before anyone fills or alters a protected area such as a bank, marsh, swamp or land beside a stream or pond, and the work waits until appeal periods have passed. The same posted bylaw makes the first 25 feet of the buffer around those areas a No-Disturb Zone that bars porches, decks, pools, sheds and other structures, apart from narrow exceptions the commission can allow, so the office is the place to check how that falls on your lot.

For work on an existing home you live in with one to four units, Massachusetts requires Home Improvement Contractor registration. Building work on a one or two family home, like a new foundation, has to be overseen by a licensed construction supervisor or a registered design professional, and that license doesn't stand in for the registration. We're licensed and insured, and I'm happy to go over what your job calls for when I come out.

It may, because the Board of Health handles permits and inspections for septic systems and pools. Rochester's forms also include a Board of Health building permit form used only for accessory structures, additions and pools, so pool decks, addition slabs and outbuilding foundations can pass by the board, and I find out where your job stands with it while I'm writing the estimate.

Your price comes from the estimate after I've seen the lot, because the biggest swing on a Rochester driveway is the ground under it and how much has to come out before the base goes in. Size, thickness and finish add to it, and stamped or colored work costs more than a plain broom finish. If something has to give, I'd keep the full base and pick a simpler finish, since the base is the part nobody sees and the part that keeps the slab flat.

Most early cracks come from the prep, not the concrete, such as a base that was raked level instead of dug out and packed, water running toward or under the slab, a pour in the midday heat, or control joints cut late or skipped. Control joints are grooves cut into the slab so it cracks along a line we chose instead of wherever it likes, and on every job we pack the base, check where the water runs and cut the joints on time. Concrete can still crack, but done this way the cracks usually stay in the joints.