Find a Concreter Brisbane QLD - What to Check and Get Quotes

Finding a Concreter in Brisbane, Job by Job

A Brisbane concreting quote is three numbers inside one figure. The finished area at a rate per square metre, the site preparation underneath it, and the removal of whatever is there now. Concreting across Queensland prices sit in predictable bands once those three are separated out. The finish is the decision that moves the rate most. A plain grey driveway runs $85 to $130 a square metre, stencil or stamped $110 to $170, exposed aggregate $120 to $190 and honed or polished $150 to $250. Each wears differently underfoot and in the sun, and the cheaper finishes are easier to patch later if a section ever has to come out.

Slabs are priced on a different basis from decorative work. A shed or granny flat slab runs $100 to $150 a square metre and the price usually assumes a reasonably level pad, so excavation and earthmoving on a sloping block is where the quote grows. Imported fill and compaction in layers are the items worth seeing itemised, because skimping on either is what causes a slab to settle unevenly. Removal and repair are the two jobs people do not budget for. Concrete repairs and crack treatment are worth getting assessed before assuming a full replacement, and garage and shed slab repairs often cost a fraction of a new pour.

On an older balcony or carport, spalling repair is a specialist job because the steel inside has to be treated before anything is patched over it. Finishing and maintenance are cheap compared with the pour. Sealing runs $8 to $20 a square metre and is worth doing on decorative finishes, while cleaning and resealing every few years keeps an exposed aggregate driveway looking like the one you paid for. Cleaning concrete and pavers is also the cheapest way to find out whether a surface actually needs replacing at all.

The Concreting Jobs Brisbane Homeowners Ring About

Driveways are the main reason Brisbane homeowners start looking for a concreter. A standard double driveway of around 40 square metres sits near $4,000 to $8,000 depending on finish. Shed and garage pads come next, with a 6 by 6 metre slab at roughly $4,500 to $9,000. Paths, patios and clothesline pads fill the small end, often $1,200 to $3,500 as indicative figures.

Granny flat and extension slabs run higher at $140 to $240 per square metre, since they carry a building above them. Repair work sits in a different category, and plenty of Brisbane calls are about patching rather than pouring. Spalling balconies, crumbling carport edges and lifting paths need cutting out and recasting instead of a fresh slab. Removing an existing driveway is its own line item, commonly $45 to $90 per square metre. Knowing which of those two buckets your job falls into changes the price more than any other detail.

Before ringing anybody, walk the job with a tape and write down the length and width in metres. Square metres drive almost every price in this trade, so that measurement alone gets you comparable quotes. Note how a truck would reach the pour, because a backyard slab behind a side gate means barrows or a pump. Check whether anything already there has to be broken out, and whether the ground slopes noticeably. Photograph the area from the street and from the far corner, since most concreters quote off decent photos. Indicative only, and concreting across Queensland prices move with access before material.

Driveways: Thickness, Reinforcement And The Kerb Gradient Problem

A residential driveway in Brisbane is normally poured 100mm thick with mesh through the middle. Where a caravan, boat trailer or loaded ute sits regularly, 125mm to 150mm with heavier mesh adds roughly $15 to $30 per square metre. Mesh placement matters more than mesh grade, since it belongs on bar chairs in the upper third of the slab. Insist that the quote states both thickness and mesh type, because that is where a cheap price usually hides.

Thin concrete over a soft base remains the most common reason a driveway fails inside five years. The crossover, meaning the strip between the kerb and your boundary, is where driveway jobs get complicated. Council has a view on that transition, and your practical problem is gradient change rather than paperwork. Brisbane streets often have high kerbs and steep verges.

A driveway fine on paper can bottom out a low car. Good concreters set up a string line and a level before quoting, then design a transition curve instead of a straight ramp. Mention it early if your existing crossover already scrapes, because the fix may need a layback alteration and council approval. Residential slab and footing design sits under AS 2870, with AS 3600 covering the concrete itself.

Drainage separates a lasting driveway from a problem one, and it is cheap to get right at design stage. Concrete should slope away from the house at about 1 in 100, which is roughly 10mm for every metre as a bare minimum. Any driveway running downhill towards a garage needs a grated drain across the entry, at $400 to $1,200 installed. Where the slab meets a boundary fence, a turned down edge stops it undermining in heavy rain. Test the slope yourself with a hose first, since water that pools tells you what the new pour has to fix. Driveway installation assumes truck access unless the quote says otherwise.

Sloping Blocks And Steep Driveways: Where The Extra Money Goes

Plenty of Brisbane suburbs sit on real hills, and slope turns a flat pour into a small engineering problem. Steep driveways need a broom finish at minimum, and often a deliberately grooved surface for tyre grip in the wet. Formwork has to be braced harder because wet concrete wants to run downhill, so crews pour smaller batches with a stiffer mix. Budget $120 to $200 per square metre where a level driveway might have come in at $85 to $130.

Steep blocks through Bardon, The Gap, Chapel Hill and Kenmore are where this bites. Retaining is the hidden cost on sloping blocks, and it often dwarfs the concrete itself. Cutting into a bank to level a shed pad means holding soil back with blocks, sleepers or a poured wall. Anything over a metre high usually needs engineering input.

$400 to $900 per square metre of wall face is indicative. Fill is the mirror problem, since building up needs compacted material in layers plus a thicker edge beam. Many quotes exclude retaining entirely, so read whether yours includes it or simply assumes level ground. Access tends to be worse on hills, which quietly inflates every other line of the quote. A concrete truck cannot park safely on a steep verge.

A pump is often the only option at $900 to $1,800. Excavated spoil has to be carried uphill or craned out, and tight battleaxe blocks mean barrow runs rather than a bobcat. Surveying becomes worthwhile above a certain gradient, because a 50mm level error across a long driveway shows as a visible dip. Ask exactly how the crew intends to get concrete to the far end, since the answer explains most of the gap between quotes. A cut on a slope often needs excavation and earthmoving before any formwork.

Plain, Exposed Aggregate, Stencil, Honed And Coloured

Plain grey with a broom finish is the workhorse of Brisbane concreting at roughly $80 to $130 per square metre. Broom texture gives slip resistance, hides small imperfections and ages honestly rather than badly. Exposed aggregate sits at the premium end, usually $120 to $190, and is made by washing back the surface paste to reveal stone. Each stone choice reads differently in Brisbane light, so choose from a real sample board outdoors instead of a brochure. Exposed surfaces hide dirt and tyre marks better than anything else, which is why they dominate newer driveways. Budget a little extra for the sealer these finishes need to keep looking right.

Stencil concrete, where a paper pattern is laid on fresh concrete and oxide applied over it, falls between the two at $100 to $160. It gives a brick or tile look for far less than pavers, but the colour layer is only surface deep. Full western sun will fade a stencil across eight to twelve years, and wheel tracks wear through first. Honed or polished exterior work is the dearest common option at $180 to $280, because it means several grinding passes and a sealer. Colour mixed through the load costs an extra $15 to $40 per square metre and holds up far better than a surface oxide.

Think about where tyres turn, as power steering scrubbing is what kills decorative finishes first. Wear patterns differ in ways worth knowing before you commit the money. Broom finish wears slowly and evenly, while exposed aggregate loses the odd stone yet stays presentable for decades. Honed surfaces show every oil drop and want resealing more often, which is painful under a leaking car. Anything decorative needs a sealer to look right, so that becomes a recurring cost rather than a one off. Match the finish to the traffic, keeping honed and stencil for courtyards and alfresco areas where vehicles never go.

Shed, Extension And Granny Flat Slabs

Shed slabs are the simplest of the three, typically 100mm thick with mesh and a thickened edge. A 6 by 3 metre pad usually comes in around $2,800 to $5,000 as an indicative figure. Whether the slab extends past the shed footprint matters, because a 100mm apron keeps water off the walls. Extension slabs cost more since they tie into a house, matching floor levels and doweling into the old footing. Figure on $140 to $240 per square metre for habitable slab work around Brisbane, before any piering.

What a slab quote usually includes is formwork, mesh, concrete, the pour, finishing and basic edge detail. What it often leaves out is excavation, spoil removal, imported fill, engineering, soil testing, piering and termite protection. Services are a classic gap, since a granny flat slab needs the sewer and water points marked out and inspected before the pour. Ask whether the price assumes good soil, because a reactive site may need a stiffened raft or bored piers. Piering of that sort can add $4,000 to $15,000, so clarify early who orders the soil test.

Getting the setout right deserves your attention, since concrete is unforgiving once it has gone off. Confirm the dimensions, the position relative to boundaries and the finished floor level in writing. Boundary setbacks catch people out, and a slab poured 200mm too close to a fence can mean relocation. For anything habitable, floor level above the surrounding ground is what keeps stormwater out in a downpour. Pin those three numbers down in advance and most slab disputes simply never happen. For a new shed, shed and garage construction is often quoted with the slab.

Why Concrete Cracks And Which Cracks Matter

All concrete cracks, and anybody promising otherwise is selling you something. Shrinkage is the reason, because fresh concrete loses water as it cures and contracts slightly. Control joints decide where the tearing happens by creating a weak line the crack follows instead of wandering. Joints are cut to about a quarter of the slab depth and spaced two to three metres on a 100mm slab. Reinforcement never prevents cracking either, since its job is holding both sides together so the crack stays hairline. Hairline cracks that follow a joint and stay under about 1mm wide are normal and need nothing beyond a clean.

Cracks worth worrying about show a step in level, a width above roughly 2mm, or steady growth over months. Diagonal cracks running out from a corner usually mean the base moved or that corner had no joint in it. Fine map pattern cracking on the top surface, called crazing, comes from overworking or added water, and it is cosmetic rather than structural. Take a photo of the crack with a coin beside it, then repeat it three months later to see whether anything moves. Joint spacing comes from AS 3600 and the National Construction Code sits alongside it. Poor jointing is one of the most common quality problems on new Brisbane driveways.

Walk a finished job and look for joints stopping short of the edge, cut too shallow, or panels far longer one way. Long thin panels crack across the middle almost every time, so a driveway should be jointed into roughly square sections. An isolation joint should separate new concrete from a garage slab, a service pit or any fixed structure. Raise jointing at quote stage and have the spacing written down, since nobody argues once it is on the page.

Reactive Clay And What It Does Under A Slab

Large parts of Brisbane sit on reactive clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. A clay site can lift and drop 20mm to 60mm between a wet February and a dry September. Houses in the western and southern suburbs often have more reactive profiles than the sandier pockets. Only a soil test tells you your own site classification, and it is money well spent before a slab. Trees matter too, because a mature gum within striking distance dries the clay unevenly and pulls a corner down. Reactive clay runs through much of Carina, Wishart, Mansfield and Springwood.

What all this means practically is that design matters more on clay than on sand. Slabs on reactive sites get stiffened edge beams, closer internal beams or bored piers to a stable depth. Keeping moisture even around the slab is the cheapest protection available to any homeowner. Downpipes should run to stormwater, garden beds should not be watered hard against an edge, and no soak away belongs beside a footing. Drainage failures cause more clay movement damage than anything else, and they are almost always fixable. Fixing a blocked downpipe is far cheaper than repairing the path it has been undermining.

Diagnosing clay movement at home is straightforward if you watch for the seasonal pattern. Cracks that open after a dry winter and close again after a wet month are moisture driven. A crack that only ever widens suggests settlement or footings that were never deep enough. Look along a path with your eye close to the surface, as you will see a dish a tape measure misses. Record dates with your photos, because the timing of movement is the best evidence you can hand anybody.

Site Preparation, Excavation, Fill And Compaction

Everything that gives concrete a long life happens before the truck arrives. Topsoil and organic material have to come out, since vegetable matter rots and leaves voids under the slab. The subgrade is trimmed to level and proof rolled, and soft spots get dug out rather than covered over. Road base or crusher dust goes down at 50mm to 100mm, compacted in layers to spread the load. Allow $25 to $60 per square metre for proper preparation.

More where the ground is wet or full of rubble. Compaction is where corners get cut most often, and the consequences arrive two summers later. Fill tipped in and raked flat settles under its own weight, showing up as a sagging panel or a hollow sounding patch. Each layer should be no thicker than about 150mm before compacting, and sandy fill needs water to compact properly.

On deeper fills of 400mm or more, a compaction test costs a few hundred dollars and is cheap insurance. Ask what fill is being used and in what thickness. Clean sand, road base and site spoil behave completely differently. A few other preparation items belong in any quote worth comparing.

Plastic membrane under a habitable slab stops ground moisture rising through the concrete and is not optional. Service location should happen before digging, since water, gas and telecommunications run shallower than people expect. Spend ten minutes walking the site with the concreter, pointing out pits, meters and irrigation lines. Where levels change along a boundary, finding a fencer in Brisbane is easier once the concrete levels are set.

Pouring Around Storm Season And Curing In The Heat

Brisbane storm season runs roughly from October to March and dictates scheduling for half the year. Rain landing on concrete that has not taken its initial set is the real danger here. Water dilutes the surface paste and leaves a weak, dusty top layer that never hardens properly. Crews watch the radar and will often postpone, so a reschedule call at 6am signals a careful contractor. Once initial set is reached, usually three to five hours in summer, light rain does little harm. Storms across Logan, Ipswich and Moreton Bay move pour dates every summer.

Heat creates the opposite problem, since concrete poured at 35 degrees loses surface water faster than it can bleed. Plastic shrinkage cracking appears as short random cracks within hours, driven almost entirely by rapid evaporation. Summer pours therefore start early, with concrete on site by 6am and finishing done by late morning. Curing is the part homeowners never see, and concrete needs to stay damp for at least three days. Ask how the crew intends to cure the slab.

A job left to bake reaches well under its design strength. Season also affects the finish you choose and how long you wait for it. Washing off exposed aggregate has to happen at a precise point in the set, and a hot day narrows that window sharply. Winter pours go off more slowly, which means a longer finishing day but a gentler cure and fewer surface problems. Sealing carries its own rules, wanting a dry slab, no rain for 24 hours and temperatures under about 30 degrees. Plan a decorative pour for the shoulder months if your timing is flexible, since April, May, August and September suit this city best.

Concreting Under A High Set Queenslander

Turning the dirt under a high set house into a usable floor is a constant request in Brisbane older suburbs. A sealed floor stops dust and damp, makes the space usable for parking or laundry, and adds value cheaply. An under house area of 60 to 80 square metres might run $9,000 to $20,000 as an indicative range. Working height is the first thing to check, since a bobcat needs around 2.2 metres of clearance. Measure from the dirt up to the lowest bearer at several points, as old houses are rarely level underneath. Paddington, Red Hill, Annerley and Coorparoo are full of houses built this way.

Access is what moves the number most, and it pays to be realistic about yours. Concrete must travel from the street into a confined space full of timber stumps, so a line pump usually replaces the chute. Spoil leaves the same way, and 60 square metres dug 150mm deep is roughly nine cubic metres of dirt. Pump hire and extra labour push the rate to $150 to $280 per square metre, against $90 to $130 in an open backyard. Expect the crew to spend as long on preparation and protection as on the pour itself. Several details specific to under house slabs are easy to miss at quote stage.

Stumps and piers must not be undermined, so excavation stops short of each footing and the slab is poured around it. Moisture is the other consideration, because a membrane and a drain at the low side stop the space becoming damp. Falls should run somewhere you can live with, usually towards the driveway or a grate. Inspect your stumps for rot or concrete cancer before pouring, as fixing them later means working inside a finished space.

Concrete Cancer And Spalling On Older Balconies And Carports

Spalling, often called concrete cancer, happens when steel inside concrete rusts and expands. Rust takes several times the volume of the original steel, so it pushes concrete off in flakes and sheets. Damage usually shows along the underside edge of a balcony or the soffit, which is the flat underside, of a suspended carport. Brisbane humidity accelerates it, and 1960s to 1980s homes with thin cover over the reinforcement suffer worst. This is a repair trade rather than a pouring job.

The crew you want is not always the crew who pours driveways. Diagnosing it yourself is realistic up to a point. Tap along the edges and underside with a small hammer and listen for a dull drummy sound replacing a solid ring. Brown staining running down from a crack line, and bulges roughly 20mm to 40mm in from an edge, confirm the pattern.

Water is always involved, so check the balcony falls, any waterproofing and whether a planter sits above the damage. Note whether the problem stays at the edges or spreads across a whole soffit, since the second needs an engineer. Repair follows a set sequence, and the cost depends mostly on how much has to come out. Failed concrete is cut back to sound material, steel is cleaned to bright metal, primer goes on and a repair mortar rebuilds the profile.

Indicative pricing runs $400 to $900 per square metre for straightforward edge and soffit work. Scaffolding or an elevated work platform adds $600 to $2,500 depending on height and duration. Waterproofing and drainage have to be fixed in the same visit, otherwise the repair fails again within a few years. Concrete cancer and spalling repairs are priced per area treated.

Sealing And Maintenance

Sealers slow water and oil absorption, help the surface resist staining and lift colour on decorative work. Penetrating sealers soak in, change the appearance very little and suit a broom finish driveway or a plain path. Topical sealers sit on top as a film, give the wet look people associate with exposed aggregate, and wear off in the wheel tracks. Pricing usually lands at $8 to $20 per square metre for a reseal, or $1,000 to $2,500 for a driveway and path together. Slip resistance is worth raising, since a glossy sealer on a sloping driveway becomes dangerous in the wet without an additive. Timing follows a fairly predictable cycle in this climate.

New concrete should cure for 28 days before its first seal, and decorative work is normally sealed with the original job. Plan on recoating a topical sealer every two to four years and a penetrating one every four to seven. Watch the signs rather than the calendar, because water darkening the slab instead of beading means the coat has gone. Sealing over a dirty or damp slab traps the problem underneath, so preparation matters more than the product.

Day to day maintenance is undemanding and mostly about stopping stains before they set. Rinse oil and fuel drips promptly, use a degreaser instead of a wire brush, and keep leaf litter off decorative surfaces. Pressure washing is fine at moderate pressure with a wide fan tip held well back from the surface. A narrow nozzle held close will erode the surface paste and fade a stencil pattern permanently. Garden soil and mulch should sit below the slab edge, since constant damp encourages efflorescence and moss. Driveway sealing and cleaning are best quoted as one job.

Removing And Disposing Of Old Concrete

Replacing a driveway means paying for demolition, cartage and tipping before a dollar goes into new concrete. Indicative removal runs $45 to $90 per square metre unreinforced. $70 to $120 where there is mesh or heavy reo. Thickness and reinforcement drive it, so an old 75mm path breaks up quickly while a 150mm slab needs a breaker attachment.

Disposal is charged by weight at a recycler, and concrete is heavy: 40 square metres at 100mm is close to ten tonnes. Expect tip fees and truck movements to be a real part of that line rather than a rounding error. Keeping the old slab is sometimes the better option and always worth asking about. Where existing concrete is sound, level and free of structural cracks, an overlay can go over the top at $55 to $110 per square metre. That gives a new appearance for roughly half the cost of full replacement.

Overlays add 10mm to 40mm of height, which matters at a garage door, a threshold or a kerb crossover. Resurfacing will not fix movement, a failing base or a crack that steps, since the new layer telegraphs the problem through. Several practical things make demolition day cheaper and less miserable. Site protection comes first, as breaking concrete throws fragments and a bobcat chews lawn and edges.

Barrowing rubble 30 metres to the street adds hours. Check truck and machine access before the quote is signed. Confirm whether the price includes removing the base material, because old road base often has to come out for levels. Dust and noise are unavoidable for a day, so warn the neighbours and move cars early. Old slabs and footings sometimes need assessment before you assume replacement.

What Happens On Pour Day

Pour day starts early, often with the crew on site around 6am setting formwork and checking levels. Concrete arrives in agitator trucks of up to about 8 cubic metres, and a driveway is one or two loads. Finishing is the long part, since floating, edging, jointing and brooming each have to happen at the right moment. An exposed aggregate pour runs into the afternoon, because the surface gets washed back once the paste has gone off. Expect a single long day, with the crew returning next morning to cut joints and strip forms. The same applies whether the job is in Nundah or out at North Lakes.

Waiting times after the pour are not negotiable, and they are where people most often cause damage. Foot traffic is generally fine after 24 to 36 hours in Brisbane summer conditions. Cars can go on after 7 days, while caravans, trailers and heavy vehicles should wait the full 28. Concrete gains most of its strength in the first week, but the last stretch takes the whole month. Keep sprinklers, pets and children off a fresh slab, because paw prints set beautifully and permanently.

What you clear beforehand decides whether the day runs properly. Move every vehicle off the driveway and out of the street frontage the night before, since a truck needs room to swing. Unlock gates, restrain the dog, shift furniture and pot plants, and give the crew access to a tap and hose. Overhanging branches that would catch a chute or pump line should be cut back in advance. Tell the crew about irrigation lines, the septic lid and the soft spot in the lawn before the bobcat finds them.

What Concreting Costs Around Brisbane

As indicative Brisbane figures, plain grey broom finish supplied and laid runs about $80 to $130 per square metre. Stencil sits at $100 to $160, exposed aggregate at $120 to $190, and honed or polished exterior work at $180 to $280. Those rates assume a reasonably flat site with truck access, a 100mm slab with mesh, and nothing to remove. Anything under about 20 square metres often attracts a minimum charge of $1,500 to $2,500. Larger areas get cheaper per square metre, with 100 square metres and above sitting near the bottom of each band.

Travel across a city reaching from Caboolture to Beenleigh is a real input. The variables that move a price are predictable once you know to look for them. Site access is the biggest single factor, since a pump adds $900 to $1,800 and barrow work adds hours of labour. Slope, thickness upgrades, extra reinforcement, removal, imported fill, retaining and drainage all stack up. Engineering, soil tests and crossover approvals are separate professional costs, typically $500 to $2,500 combined. Concrete supply keeps climbing, so a quote more than about two months old is usually out of date.

Comparing quotes properly means getting them all on the same basis. Ask every concreter for the same written scope: area, thickness, mesh type, base depth, finish, joint spacing, sealer and spoil removal. A quote landing 30 percent below the others is usually missing the base, the removal or the thickness. Payment terms matter too, and a modest deposit with the balance on completion is normal for residential work. Push back on any request for a large upfront payment before materials are ordered or work has started.

What To Look Out For On A Brisbane Concreting Quote

The first warning sign is vagueness, because a one line quote reading driveway, concrete, $6,500 holds nobody to anything. Any quote worth comparing states area, thickness, mesh, base, finish and joint layout. Business details and the licence number should appear on the page as a matter of course. Watch for quotes specifying 75mm or omitting thickness, since that is the cheapest way to undercut a competitor. Anything silent on the existing concrete or the excavated spoil is incomplete by definition.

Pressure tactics and payment demands are the next thing to weigh up. A price only valid today, or a crew with spare concrete from another job, is reason enough to slow down. Requests for most of the money in cash before work starts should end the conversation. Experienced concreters here are typically booked weeks ahead, so an immediate start at a discount deserves questions. Keep everything in writing, including changes agreed on the day, because verbal variations are where disputes begin. Two or three written quotes on identical scope give you a sensible range to judge against.

Finally, look hard at what is promised about performance and aftercare. Nobody can guarantee crack free concrete, so that promise tells you the person is inexperienced or not being straight. A sensible warranty covers workmanship and excessive cracking instead of making impossible claims. Clarify whether the sealer is included, who returns to cut the joints, and what happens if a panel cracks badly. Inspect a couple of jobs poured two or three years ago, as concrete shows its quality after a few summers.