Older neighborhoods here were laid out long before anyone planned for a full-size concrete truck. Driveways run narrow between houses, garages sit at the back of deep lots, and the walk out front answers to a different set of rules than the slab behind the house. Concrete 801 is where Salt Lake City homeowners find flatwork contractors who work in tight quarters every week and who plan a pour around the access they actually have instead of the access they wish they had. Call 801-644-9000 and describe what you are looking at.
A lot of driveways in this part of Salt Lake County are still the original pour, carrying forty or fifty years of patches, cold joints and cutback edges from utility work. By the time panels rock underfoot, the surface is flaking and cracks have opened wide enough to hold gravel, the problem usually is not the concrete you can see. It is what is under it. Soil that was never compacted for a slab, a base that has washed out at the low end, or roots that have made room for themselves. A contractor should be probing and looking at the edges before anyone talks about replacement.
Removal on an old driveway is its own job. Sprinkler lines, gas and water service, a stub of old walk that nobody wants to disturb and a garage floor that the new slab has to meet cleanly are all in the way. Old drives were also often poured to a grade that no longer matches the yard around them, so the new work has to pick up the difference without pushing water at the house or the neighbor. Thickness, reinforcement and mix are decisions the contractor makes for your site and how you use the driveway, not numbers to read off a page.
On the older grid, side yards are tight, the street is narrow, and there may be cars parked on both sides of it all day. That changes the whole plan. A mixer that cannot reach the pour means a pump, a conveyor or a long buggy run, and each of those needs somewhere to sit. Forms, reinforcement and the broken-out concrete all need staging space that does not block your neighbors. Good contractors walk the route before they quote anything, because the difference between backing a truck up to the forms and moving every yard by hand is the whole shape of the day.
Deep lots with a garage at the back are the classic version of this. So are gates too narrow for equipment, mature trees you do not want damaged, overhead lines, and a lawn or a neighbor's driveway that has to be protected on the way through. Sometimes the answer is pouring in stages so the crew always has a working surface to reach the next section. Ask any contractor you talk to how they intend to get concrete to the back of your lot, what they will lay down to protect what they cross, and where the debris pile goes while the work is going on.
Almost every project on an established street eventually touches the sidewalk, the park strip or the driveway approach that crosses them. This is the part homeowners guess about most and should guess about least. Who is responsible for the public walk, whether a permit is required, and what standards apply to work in the right-of-way all vary from city to city in Utah, and the city itself is the authority on its own rules. Before you plan around an assumption, call the city and ask. It is a short conversation, and it decides how the rest of the project gets scheduled.
Once you know what applies, the sequencing gets easier. The approach where your driveway crosses the walk usually has to be handled as part of the driveway work rather than after it, and a park strip lifted by roots may need attention at the same time so the finished grades line up. If the city requires an inspection or a specific finish on public walk, your contractor works to that. We ask the contractors we send to homeowners to confirm the requirements with the city rather than assume the rules are the same as the last town they poured in.
It depends on whether the failures are on the surface or under it. Patching makes sense when the slab is sound and one area is chipped or spalled. When panels rock, cracks keep reopening in new places, or the edges are crumbling along their whole length, the base has usually moved and a patch sits on the same failing ground. Have a contractor look at the base, not just the top.
Usually, yes. Concrete can be pumped, conveyed or moved by buggy when a truck cannot reach the forms, and crews here do it constantly on narrow city lots. What it changes is planning and staging: where the truck parks, what the hose or conveyor crosses, and how the pour is broken into sections. Tell the contractor about the access when you first call, not on pour day.
Possibly, and you should ask before you plan anything around it. Responsibility for public sidewalk and park strip, permit requirements, and construction standards in the right-of-way differ between Utah cities, and your city is the only authority on which apply to your address. Call them, get the answer for your property, then have your contractor build the project around it.
Send it over and we will match you with a Wasatch Front concrete contractor who covers your area.