Concrete
Concrete Driveways, Walks and Curbs Built for Burnet County Ground
Central Texas concrete work starts underground. Subgrade prep, drainage and jointing decide whether a slab lasts twenty years or cracks in five.
Chapter 01
The ground decides the slab, not the mix
Burnet County sits on the edge of the Llano Uplift, where granite and caliche run close to the surface under thin, reactive soils. A driveway poured on that kind of ground behaves differently than one poured on deep, stable soil thirty miles away, and the difference usually shows up years later as a crack, a lift at a joint, or a slab that holds water where it shouldn't.
We treat subgrade prep as the actual job, not the step that happens before the real work starts. That means compacting the base to a consistent density across the whole pour, correcting soft spots instead of pouring over them, and setting the grade so water moves off the slab instead of pooling against a foundation wall or a garage door.
Golden-hour view of a prepared job-site surface ahead of a concrete pour in Central Texas
Jointing and cure, not just the pour
Concrete shrinks as it cures, and a slab with no plan for that shrinkage cracks wherever the stress happens to land instead of where it was designed to. We cut and place control joints on a pattern sized to the slab, so the concrete cracks along a line we chose, not one that finds you later on its own.
Cure control matters as much on a hot, dry Central Texas afternoon as it does in the middle of winter. A driveway that skips proper curing loses moisture too fast and comes out weaker than the same mix cured right. We adjust pour timing and curing method to the weather we're actually pouring into rather than a generic schedule.
Chapter 03
Repair, resurfacing and expansion on existing concrete
Not every problem needs a new slab. A driveway with surface spalling or shallow cracking can often be resurfaced rather than torn out, and a section that's settled or heaved because of what's underneath it, not the concrete itself, can be cut out and replaced without redoing the whole pour.
When we do cut out and replace a damaged section, we go back to the base first. Pouring new concrete over the same compromised subgrade that failed the old section just buys you the same failure again, on a longer timeline.
Sidewalks, curbs and levelling that tie the property together
Sidewalk and curb work runs on the same rule as a driveway: a walk that's level, drains correctly and sits on a properly prepared base outlasts one that just looks finished on install day. We grade sidewalks with a fall away from the house, and finish curb lines so they hold their edge instead of chipping within a season.
Sealing is worth doing on new and older concrete alike here, given how much sun and how many freeze-thaw swings a Hill Country slab goes through in a year. It won't fix a base problem, but on a sound slab it slows the surface wear that eventually turns into the cracks we get called out to fix.
Hinds Paving — Fully insured. HUB certified. Call (512) 756-3094.
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