We were all like children on Christmas morning when the concrete truck and Dan Guardo Contracting pulled into our driveway this week. It was driveway pouring day and we couldn’t be more excited!
My husband and I were excited about having a beautiful new driving surface that would increase the enjoyment and value of our home. Our kids were excited for the endless hours ahead of sidewalk chalk drawings and riding their bikes and scooters on the driveway.
Check out this time lapse video for a quick look at our driveway pouring day.
This is not a sponsored post. I received a discount for a series of posts.
Driveway Pouring Day with Dan Guardo Contracting
The Dan Guardo Contracting crew went straight to work like a well-oiled machine or a choreographed dance, each going here and there in perfect unison. I turned a soundtrack of “A Midsummer Nights Dream,” grabbed some popcorn, and watched the show! 🙂 Seriously, I felt confident in their ability to deliver a flawless driveway for our home – as long as I didn’t interrupt them too much with all my picture taking!
The ready mix concrete was ready to pour immediately upon arrival straight from the spinning drum of the concrete truck. (BTW, the concrete truck driver raved about how Dan Guardo is fabulous to work with and how he treats both his employees and concrete truck drivers great. He said how much he prefers to work with Dan Guardo over other companies.)
The concrete was poured into a motorized concrete buggy which made the entire process move quickly. The concrete buggy delivers enough concrete to fill to the top edge of the wood forms and levels per-determined for the porch and driveway pitch – it is an exact science as they don’t want water flowing toward the house but away from it.
They started first with our front porch. Ever since we installed our new Clopay front door, I’ve felt like our home didn’t measure up to it’s potential. With the new concrete porch, it is finally there. I snapped a few pictures from our front door as they poured and smoothed the concrete. It is amazing how they can take concrete and smooth it out so perfectly.
The concrete goes through several smoothing processes that results in a smooth surface. The men used rakes and come alongs, which are special concrete rakes to move and smooth the concrete while removing all voids and air pockets.
From here, they used the large wood board to smooth and screen the top of the concrete. This board is amazing in how much it smooths out the concrete but it doesn’t stop there, after the board, they used a float along the entire surface several times to compact the surface even more and create a smooth finish.
Below is the start of the driveway, located next to our front porch.
On the side of our house, we added an extra parking space with gravel when we moved in. We had asked Dan Guardo to extend it even further to provide us with enough space to park 2 cars along the side of our house. We are so excited to get the extra parking space. You can see the wood forms below for this new driveway surface.
I couldn’t believe how quickly the entire driveway pouring process took. They were completely done by 1pm! They moved right along down the driveway next.
We live on a county road so there are special circumstances. We have a ditch along the edge of the road with a culvert pipe that runs underneath our driveway. If we were to run the concrete to the road, we would have to get a special permit from the county and inspection from them. This would require an additional day to the project and an additional concrete truck delivery- and thus, added cost. If you notice, many people on county roads do not have concrete to the road, instead we kept gravel for the remaining several feet to avoid the hassle and added expense.
For finishing the concrete job, they went back over the entire concrete porch and driveway with special hand tools to create the joints and edges. Next, they used a steel trowel along the surface once it began to firm up. Finally, they used a rough broom to finish and add texture to the surface. This is the most popular kind of finish for concrete driveways. Dan Guardo Contracting also offers decorative concrete, stamped, textured, smooth surfaces, and more. 
After the concrete cured for a day, they returned to cut lines into the concrete to limit and prevent cracking, another common practice.
While the concrete continued to cure and harden, we cannot drive on our new driveway for 5-7 days. I cannot wait to share with you the finished project! We’ll be keeping it clean with our favorite Simply Green product so it looks new as day 1 forever!
Find before and after photos and how we are enjoying our concrete driveway here.
Are you interested in a new concrete driveway or patio for your home or office? Give Dan a call at 330-945-8001 for your free on-site estimate.
