Concrete Contractors in Lancaster, WI

Concrete Contractors in Lancaster work in a city planned to be the Grant County seat. Glendower Price, a Cassville merchant, platted it in 1837 for its central location, and a relative from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, supplied the name. The third and current courthouse went up in 1902 in red sandstone under a glass-and-copper dome, which earned Lancaster the nickname City of the Dome. In 2020 the city had 3,907 people in 1,800 housing units. Madison Street carries U.S. 61 north to south through downtown; Highway 35 merges onto it from the east, and County A cuts across east to west.

A grid of older blocks

A planned county seat usually means a street grid with homes from many decades. Lancaster's older blocks share familiar concrete problems:

• Public walks lifted by street trees or broken into pieces
• Front steps that have tipped from the house
• Driveway aprons crumbling where plows and salt hit them
• Detached garage floors sunk or sloped backward

When we replace a failed section, we fix the base under it so the new concrete does not follow the old down.

Hard winters

Snowfall averages about 37.4 inches a year under 1991 to 2020 normals, and the city has seen -31°F. Freeze-thaw and salt cause most of the surface damage on older concrete in town. Our exterior slabs are air entrained, finished without added water, cured properly and sealed once they are ready. For the first winter, use sand, not rock salt.

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Highway driveways

Homes along Madison Street and Highway 35 see more traffic and more road salt than side streets. Driveway aprons there wear fastest. When the driveway behind it is in good shape, the apron alone can be sawed out at a joint and repoured heavier.

Garage floors

A garage floor replacement means breaking out the old slab, redoing the base and pouring new with a fall toward the overhead door. Heavy trucks or stored equipment change the thickness, so mention them.

Patios

A patio is a simple way to add outdoor space on a city lot. Its size follows how you plan to use it; it falls away from the house, and the finish can be broom, color or stamped.

Tree roots

When roots have lifted a walk or driveway edge, we look at whether trimming is safe for the tree and whether a thicker, reinforced section or a slight shift in layout is the better answer.

City of the Dome, Driftless setting

Lancaster sits at about 1,099 feet in the unglaciated Driftless Area of southwestern Wisconsin. Around the courthouse square, older homes and the 1922 Prairie School municipal building set the tone, and residential streets spread out from there on rolling ground. Rolling ground means most driveways have some pitch, so we set a cross-slope that moves water to the lawn rather than straight down the slab into the garage.

A WPA mural and a Wright house

The Lancaster Post Office holds a 1940 WPA mural, and the Patrick and Margaret Kinney House in town was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. A city with that kind of history tends to have owners who care how an entry looks. For front walks and steps on character homes, we discuss finish, color and edge detail so the new concrete fits the house rather than standing out.

Squared-off lots on a compass grid

Glendower Price laid the town out in 1837 on a grid aligned to the compass, so many blocks have regular, rectangular lots with alleys or side drives. That makes access simpler than in the hill towns, but it also means a garage at the back of the lot often sits lower or higher than the street. We shoot the grade from the garage to the curb before forming, so the drive drains to the street or the lawn instead of toward the garage door.

Permits

Public walks and aprons wait on the city's word about permits.