Concreter Drouin: Shed Slabs, Driveways and Alfresco Areas

Whether it is a pad under a new shed or the driveway and paths that finish a new house, what decides how long the concrete lasts happens before any concrete turns up. Around Drouin the ground is either fill graded to get a house up, or soft paddock that holds water most of the winter. Neither forgives a thin base. We have been pouring on both since 2007. Big Fella Landscapes pours driveways, shed slabs, house slabs, paths and alfresco areas, and the concreter who pours yours does the digging, the levels and the drainage underneath. Ring 0412 881 728 and Kane Dalman will come and look at your ground at no cost.

Who Digs, Levels and Drains Before Anyone Pours

Concreting work often gets split in two, one outfit to dig and another to pour, which leaves you carrying the join. We do the lot. Kane Dalman holds qualifications in Landscape Construction, Concreting and Carpentry, our crews include qualified concreters, and the work stays in house rather than going to subcontractors. The carpentry qualification covers what comes after the slab, so decking in Drouin off the back of an alfresco area is quoted alongside it instead of chased up separately.

On a new estate lot that matters more than it sounds. Fill pushed around to get a house built is not a base, so it comes out or gets compacted properly before anything is set out. Wet paddock ground asks the same question from the other direction, and the answer is in the excavation rather than in the mix.

Once the quote is accepted you get an assigned crew and a start date, with Kane as the one person you deal with from the first visit through to handover. We finish on time and on budget, and everything we pour carries a 12-month workmanship guarantee.

Big Fella Landscapes, Concreting Since 2007

Kane Dalman started Big Fella Landscapes in 2007 and still fronts the site visits himself. His concreting qualification was there from the beginning alongside the landscape construction one, which is why the base, the slab and what gets built around it stay inside one business. Thousands of residential and commercial projects have gone through the team since. Those crews take on the concreter in Warragul jobs as well. There is more on the trade on our concreting page.

Why We Will Not Price a Slab Over the Phone

Two jobs covering the same area can land a long way apart. A compact frontage where the truck backs up to the formwork is a different exercise from a long access run that has to be dug out and rebuilt first. What the slab carries changes it again: a car, a caravan and a loaded machinery shed each set their own thickness and reinforcement. Then there is what the truck can reach, whether an old slab has to come out, and which finish you settle on.

So the number comes after someone has stood on the ground. The visit and the quote cost you nothing, and you are not locked into the first figure.

Choosing a Finish: Plain, Coloured, Exposed Aggregate, Stamped or Stencilled

Finish is worth deciding early, because it changes the preparation as well as the look.

• Plain: trowelled smooth, or broom-finished for grip. The usual answer where the job is to carry weight.
• Coloured: oxide mixed through, so the colour runs right through the slab.
• Exposed aggregate: the top skin washed back to bring the stone up. Hard-wearing, and it holds grip when wet.
• Stamped: pressed while the concrete is green to take a stone, paver or timber pattern, with no joints for weeds.
• Stencilled: pattern and colour laid onto the surface for a brick or tile look that hoses clean.

On a new frontage the finish carries the façade. On a shed pad or an access driveway, plain concrete is usually the answer, and the money is better spent under it.

What Rain Does to Your Pour Date, and to Curing

Drouin gets more rain across the year than Melbourne does, and wet ground is the most common reason a pour date moves. Saturated subgrade will not compact, and rain landing on a fresh slab marks the surface permanently. When weather does move your job, the call comes from Kane with a new date attached.

Concrete goes on hardening for weeks after the truck leaves, and more slowly through a cold, wet Gippsland winter than in February. You get one date for walking on it and a later one for driving on it.

Crossovers and Where Your Stormwater Goes

Where a new driveway crosses the footpath and joins the road, it stops being entirely your own decision. The vehicle crossing, and the legal point at which your stormwater is allowed to discharge, are matters for Baw Baw Shire, the council for Drouin. Ask them to confirm both for your address before the driveway is priced, since the answer can shift the levels and the falls. We raise it at the site visit so it is settled early.

Ring Kane and Book the Site Visit

Bring the shed drawings, the estate plan, or just point at the corner of the paddock you want a slab on. Ring Kane Dalman on 0412 881 728 or use the enquiry form, and we will find a time to stand on the ground together, outside business hours if that suits better.