Concrete parking lot building in Saratoga CA - a lot planned from the ground up

Most calls about a lot start with a gravel area that ruts and puddles every winter, or old paving that's cracked, sunk and holding water. What you pay turns mostly on how much area you're paving, what the ground needs before it can carry cars, how the water will leave the lot and whether old paving has to come out first, which is where concrete cutting can come in. The schedule turns on what the city wants to see before work starts, so we check that early, and when a permit applies we handle the contractor's side of it and help you with the parts that fall to you. Once I've walked the site, the written estimate gives you the number for your own lot.

First I measure the area you want paved and mark any protected trees nearby, because both can change what the city asks for. Then our crew digs out the soft soil and packs the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, since a base that's only raked level settles with the dirt and takes the concrete down with it. We check where the water runs and set the forms so the lot sheds water away from buildings instead of toward them. Before the pour, we sit down with you and lay out the control joints, the lines cut into the slab to give cracks a place to go, so the cracks that come land where we planned them. The crew gives the surface a broom finish, a light texture that gives tires and shoes some grip, and then the slab cures, which is the wait while the concrete gains strength before it takes cars. If the budget gets tight, I'll tell you to save on the surface before you save on the base, because nobody sees the base on day one and everybody sees it once the lot starts to sink.

A lot often comes with other work. If you're adding a light pole, a carport or a low wall on the lot, concrete footings carry that weight below the paving. If a building beside the lot has settled and its doors stick, foundation raising is worth looking at before we set grades against it, so the new lot meets the building at the right height.

Size is the first thing Saratoga's rules look at. Once a project's impervious surface, the hard ground rain can't soak into, reaches 10,000 square feet for some projects or 5,000 square feet across the whole site for most others, the city requires stormwater treatment measures for the runoff. Approval may also come with conditions for inspecting and maintaining those stormwater features, plus a signed covenant and agreement covering them, so that upkeep can become a cost you carry after the lot is built. That's why I measure the planned paving and look at what's already hard on the site at the first visit, so you know early whether those measures belong in the budget.

The ground matters too. Saratoga points to its hillsides for landslide potential and to areas near creeks for liquefaction, where wet soil can lose its strength in shaking, so I look at where your lot sits before we plan the dig. We run into the same sloped lots and low ground on jobs in Los Gatos and Cupertino, and we plan the base and drainage for it the same careful way.