Concreter Nar Nar Goon: Slabs, Driveways and Getting the Truck In

Book a concrete pour and you book a truck as well. Big Fella Landscapes has been pouring around Nar Nar Goon since 2007, and on a block with a long entrance your concreter’s first job is working out how an agitator truck reaches the pour. Sometimes it cannot, and that is a pump or a barrow run, settled at the quote. We pour driveways, shed slabs, house slabs, paths and alfresco areas, and the crew that finishes the surface cut the levels underneath it. Ring 0412 881 728 for a free on-site visit.

Getting a Truck In, and Getting a Date

Where the truck can stand decides more than most people expect. An agitator needs firm ground, room to turn and a clear run to the formwork, so a soft entrance after a wet stretch, a narrow gateway or low branches over the drive all get checked at the quote rather than with a full truck idling at your gate. Where access is tight the concrete gets pumped, priced in from the start.

Concrete also has a working life from the moment it is batched, so a pour is a fixed-start job. Formwork, mesh and levels are finished before the truck is called on, and the crew places and finishes in one run.

Your job then gets an assigned crew and a start date, with Kane Dalman your one point of contact from first visit to handover. The work is delivered on time and on budget, and every slab carries a 12-month workmanship guarantee.

The Dig, the Base and the Drainage Come With It

Excavation, levelling and drainage are usually sold as a separate trade from the concreting, which puts a join between two contractors right where the slab meets the ground. Both ends are ours. Kane Dalman holds qualifications in Landscape Construction, Concreting and Carpentry, our crews include qualified concreters, and none of it goes out to subcontractors. The carpentry qualification in that list is the trade a deck is built in, so decking in Nar Nar Goon beside a new alfresco slab runs on the same program.

One program covers the lot: topsoil off, subgrade cut and compacted, crushed rock back in to suit the load, falls set so water leaves the surface, then formwork, reinforcement and the pour.

The Concreters at Big Fella Landscapes

Kane Dalman started Big Fella Landscapes in 2007 and still turns up to quote the work himself. Concreting is one of the trades he is qualified in, alongside landscape construction and carpentry. Thousands of residential and commercial projects have gone through the team since, and the same crews handle our concreter in Bunyip work. The trade is set out in full on our concreting page.

Settling the Finish Before Pour Day

Settle the finish before the formwork goes in: a couple of these change what happens on pour day.

• Plain: broom-finished for grip or trowelled smooth, and what most shed slabs and paths get.
• Coloured: oxide mixed through, so the colour runs all the way down rather than sitting on top.
• Exposed aggregate: the surface washed back to bring the stone up. It wears well and keeps its grip wet, so it suits driveways and entertaining areas.
• Stamped: a pattern pressed into the green slab so it reads as stone, pavers or timber, with no joints for weeds.
• Stencilled: colour and pattern laid over the surface, a lighter way to a brick or tile look.

What Your Quote Is Actually Built From

A rate per square metre would be a guess: the same area of concrete lands in very different places depending on what is under it and what can reach it. Six things move it: area and shape, thickness and reinforcement for the load, how much subgrade comes out and how much base goes back in, truck access, the finish, and whether an old slab has to be cut out and carted away.

So the price follows someone standing on the site. The visit costs nothing, and you are not locked into the first figure.

Getting the Crossover Signed Off Before You Pour

The vehicle crossing where your driveway meets the road, and the legal point at which your stormwater is allowed to discharge, are council matters rather than yours, and Nar Nar Goon sits in Cardinia Shire. Ask the Shire what applies at your address before the driveway is priced, because the answer can shift levels and falls. Raise it when we come out and it goes into the plan and the price early.

When the Weather Decides the Date

Saturated ground will not compact, and rain landing on a green slab marks the surface for good. Those two facts run the calendar through a West Gippsland winter. If your date has to move, you hear it from Kane, and you hear the new one in the same call.

Curing then runs on its own clock, more slowly in cold, damp conditions, so you get one date for walking on the slab and a later one for driving on it.

Get a Date in the Book

The visit is where the access, the ground and your timing get settled at once. Phone Kane Dalman on 0412 881 728 or send the job details through the enquiry form, and after-hours times can be arranged.