Concrete Steps & Porches in Buffalo, NY

Nearly always because there is no real footing under them. If the steps sit on fill or on a shallow pad, the 48-inch frost depth here lifts them every winter and drops them every spring. Once they have moved, the joint at the house opens up and water starts running in. Repointing or patching does not fix that, because the cause is under the ground.

If it is a small chip or a spalled edge, sometimes. But if the steps have settled, separated from the house, or are scaling through, a patch will fail within a winter or two and you will have paid twice. We would rather tell you that up front.

Usually yes, and it is one of the more common jobs we do. Rebuilding the steps or porch on proper footings with the correct pitch, and regrading the soil beside it, moves the water away from the foundation. What we do not do is interior waterproofing or repairing foundation walls themselves. That is a different trade.

Outdoors, our pour season is May 1 through October 31. Once nighttime lows reach the 30s we stop, because the pour will crack. Driveways are doubly impossible in winter: Buffalo's overnight parking ban means you have to park in your driveway, and new concrete cannot be parked on for 21 days. Indoors we pour year-round, so basement floors, garage floors, pole barn slabs and sidewalks are all winter work.

Ready-mix suppliers charge a short-load fee of $1,200 to $1,400 for anything under a full truck, and fuel costs made that standard across Western New York over the last two years. So an 8x8 shed pad is only about one yard of concrete, roughly $300 of material, but it still carries a $3,200 minimum. That is not markup. It is what it costs to get a truck to your curb, and we would rather you know before we come out.

Honestly, nobody in Buffalo can. Concrete cracks here, because freeze-thaw and ground movement guarantee it. Two identical driveways poured the same day by the same crew: one is perfect for ten years, one cracks next spring. What we do is control it. We pour driveways at 5,000 PSI when most crews use 3,500 to 4,000, we run steel mesh and fiber mesh together so a crack cannot widen, and we place enough relief joints that the cracking happens down in the joints where you will not see it. The ready-mix supplier we buy from stands behind the material itself.

We guarantee 48 hours from your call to us being at your door, and it is usually quicker. We measure everything, walk the job with you, and you get the written PDF price before we pull out of your driveway. Then we call to make sure you could open it and answer anything you want to go over.