Basement floors, garage floors, slabs, sidewalks and driveways on new homes. One flatwork contractor from the footings to the last walk poured, working to the builder's schedule.
A new house needs concrete at four or five separate points in its build, and they are spread across the better part of a year. Footings and foundation walls go in before there is a house. The basement floor goes in once the shell is closed. The garage floor follows. The driveway, the walks and the stoop go in at the end, often after everything else is finished and the landscaping is waiting on them.
Minnesota Valley Concrete does all of it. We are a flatwork and foundation contractor out of Carver with fifteen-plus years in the southwest Twin Cities metro, we run our own line pump, and on a new build we would rather be the outfit doing every pour than one of three.
That is not a sales line, it is how the work goes better. The crew that poured the footings knows what the subgrade looked like. The crew that pours the driveway at the end knows where the frost wall is and what the grade was set to in the spring. On a build where those pours get split between whoever was available that month, the information does not travel, and the things that go wrong on a new house slab are almost always things somebody knew earlier and did not pass along.
We work with builders on schedule and we work directly with owners building their own home. Either way the useful conversation is the early one, because the concrete dates are the ones that move everything else on the calendar.
Call 612-221-2181 with the plans, the lot and the timeline, and we will tell you where the pours land and what the site is going to need.
The schedule is the first difference. On a remodel or a replacement, the pour date is mostly a conversation between us and the homeowner. On a new build it sits inside a chain: the excavator, the framer, the mechanicals, the inspector and the weather all have a say, and a pour that slips does not slip alone. We quote new construction work knowing the date will move, and the thing we care about is hearing when it moves rather than finding out on the morning of.
The second is that half of what we pour on a new house gets buried or covered. Footings, frost walls and the basement slab all end up under something, which means nobody looks at them again and any shortcut in them is permanent. That is the argument for the base work, the depth and the steel being right on the pours nobody photographs, and it is the same argument we make on every page of this site.
The third is frost depth, and in Minnesota it is not negotiable. Footings have to bear at least forty-two inches below finished grade, which is the Zone II minimum in Minnesota Rules 1303.1600. That is a bearing depth, meaning where the bottom of the footing sits, and it applies to what is carrying the house, an attached garage or a stoop. A slab is not a footing and never needed frost depth, which is a distinction worth knowing before somebody quotes you for the wrong thing.
The fourth is that the last pours happen on a site that has been driven over by every trade for a year. The ground where the driveway goes has been a parking lot. The grade around the house has been reworked by the excavator. Treating the final flatwork as though it were going on undisturbed ground is how a new driveway cracks in its second winter, and getting that base right is most of what the last pour is actually about.
The first concrete on the lot and the only pour the whole house sits on. Footings bear at least forty-two inches below finished grade, walls are formed, poured and stripped, and the whole thing happens on the excavator's heels and ahead of the framer.
Interior slabs poured once the building is closed in, on compacted base with the grade set so a garage floor drains to its door and a basement floor sits flat. Access is usually the interesting part, and hose from our line pump is normally how the concrete gets in.
The last pours and the first ones anybody sees. These go in after a year of construction traffic has been over the ground, which is why the base work on them is a rebuild rather than a formality.
The useful call is the one before the hole is dug. We look at the plans, the lot and the build timeline, and put the pours in the calendar with the understanding that they will move. Concrete dates are the spine of a build schedule and they are the hardest to fit in late in a season.
Utility locates through Gopher State One Call first on anything that involves digging, which is state law and the sensible order anyway. Then footings to bearing depth, walls formed, poured and stripped, and the site handed on to the next trade.
Basement and garage floors go in with the building closed in, on compacted base, with grade and slope set for what each floor has to do. Hose runs in through a walkout, a window opening or a door, so nothing has to be driven through the house.
Driveway, walks and stoop, on base rebuilt after construction traffic. Grade is set so water leaves the building, joints are cut on time and in the right places, and the apron meets the street the way the city wants it to.
We go around the finished work with you or the builder, cover cure times and what to keep off the new concrete through the first winter, and settle anything outstanding while we are still on site rather than by phone in November.
Forty-two inches is the number that governs the foundation work, and it is a bearing depth rather than cover over steel. Absent an engineer's design based on soil mechanics it applies to anything carrying the house, an addition, an attached garage or a stoop. Freestanding decks and small light frame accessory buildings have their own exceptions in the rule. A patio or a driveway slab is not a footing and never needed frost depth, and anyone telling you otherwise is quoting you for something you do not need.
Exterior flatwork on a new house gets an air entrained mix, which is concrete with microscopic air bubbles built into it deliberately so freezing water has somewhere to expand into. Interior slabs in a heated basement are a different specification than a driveway that will spend every winter outside, and they should be. The mix gets ordered to the job rather than one truck load doing everything on the property.
The first winter is the one that matters most on new concrete, and it is the one nobody warns owners about. Keep de-icing salt off a new driveway, walk and stoop entirely through that first season. Chlorides drive into the top layer of young concrete and take the surface off in flakes, which is called scaling, and it is the most common avoidable failure we get called out to look at on a house that is barely a year old. Sand gives traction and does not attack the slab.
We pour out of Carver across the southwest Twin Cities metro, which takes in the towns along the river valley, Carver and Scott counties, most of Hennepin and much of Dakota. Thirty towns have their own page on this site and those are the ones we are in most often.
New construction is where our own pump earns the most. On a build the access is at its worst exactly when the important pours happen: the lot is full of material, the ground is torn up, and a basement floor has to be placed inside a closed building. Running hose from the street instead of driving a loaded mixer around a half finished house is how those pours happen without wrecking the site.
Our pour season is March to mid-October and the calendar fills in the order it was booked. On a new build that is worth acting on early, because a house that is ready for its driveway in late October is a house that gets its driveway the following spring. Call 612-221-2181 and we will be straight with you about where your dates land.
Both. We pour for builders on their schedule and we work directly with people building their own home. The work is the same either way. What differs is who we coordinate the dates with, and on a builder job we would rather be in the schedule conversation early than be called the week the hole is open.
All of it is what we prefer: footings, walls, basement floor, garage floor, driveway, walks and stoop. We will take part of a job too. The argument for one contractor across the whole build is that what we learn at the footings stage is still with us at the driveway stage, and that information usually does not survive a handover.
At least forty-two inches below finished grade, the Zone II minimum in Minnesota Rules 1303.1600. It is a bearing depth, where the bottom of the footing sits, not cover over reinforcing steel. Absent an engineer's soil mechanics design it applies to anything carrying a house, an addition, an attached garage or a stoop.
At the end, after the trades are done driving on it. That timing is the reason a late season house often waits until spring for its driveway: the pour season runs March to mid-October, and a driveway poured on rushed base in bad weather is a driveway that gets replaced early.
Yes, and it is one of the more common line pump jobs we run. Hose goes down a walkout, through a window opening or down the stairs, and the slab gets placed inside without driving equipment through the house or moving concrete by bucket.
Salt, entirely, for the first season. Chlorides drive into the top layer of young concrete and take the surface off in flakes, which is called scaling, and it is the failure we see most often on concrete barely a year old. Sand gives you traction without attacking the slab, and a plastic or rubber edged shovel is easier on the surface than a metal blade.
We do the grading and base work our own pours sit on. Bulk excavation, the hole itself and the site work around it are a different trade, and on most builds that is already contracted separately. Tell us who is doing it and we will work in with them rather than around them.
Foundation walls, footings and frost walls for new builds, additions and garages, formed and poured to the depth Minnesota code requires.
Learn moreNew driveways and full tear out and replacement. Proper base, proper thickness, joints cut where they belong, so it does not crack the way the last one did.
Learn moreBackyards, basements and anywhere the truck cannot back up to. Line pumping so the pour reaches the form instead of the wheelbarrow.
Learn moreTell us what you are planning, a patio, a driveway, a foundation or a pour you cannot reach. We will look at the site, explain what it actually needs, and give you a free written estimate.