What Concrete Driveways & Concrete Work in Plantation Actually Entails (and What You’ll Pay)
Concrete driveway installation in Plantation is a multi-day job that involves full excavation, form building, pouring, and a week-long cure before you can park on it. The work typically spans 5-8 days from the first shovel to a driveable surface, and we most often quote between $4,500 and $12,000 depending on square footage, site access, and whether we’re removing an old slab or starting fresh. For a sharper number on your specific property, you can call (844) 638-7249 for a free on-site estimate - we measure, give you a written quote, and let you decide from there.
How We Pour a Concrete Driveway in Plantation - Start to Finish
Every crew has its own sequence, but this is the one we’ve built over hundreds of South Florida pours. It’s predictable, it’s built around Broward County’s inspection cadence, and it keeps surprises off the table.
Day 1 - Site layout and the first call to 811. We mark the exact footprint of the new driveway on your property with paint and stakes, right where the forms will sit. We call Sunshine 811 at least two full business days ahead of any digging - that’s a Florida law, not a courtesy. While we wait for the utility locate window to close, we pull the permit package together for Broward County. Homeowner decision at this stage: final driveway width, apron connection to the street, and whether you want any integral color added to the mix.
Day 2 or 3 - Demolition and base prep. If there’s an old slab, we bring it out with a skid steer and a breaker attachment. On a standard two-car width in Plantation Acres or Jacaranda Lakes, removal and haul-off takes most of a day. Then we grade the sub-base, compact it with a plate compactor, and lay down a 4-inch layer of compacted crushed limestone. In Plantation’s flat terrain, getting proper slope for drainage is everything - we want a pitch that moves water off the slab and toward the street or a yard drain, never toward your foundation.
Day 4 - Forming and reinforcement. We set wood or steel forms to the agreed layout, then tie a grid of #3 or #4 rebar inside them, elevated on chairs so it sits in the middle of the concrete, not at the bottom. Broward County wants to see that rebar spacing and slab thickness before we pour, so we schedule the footing inspection around this day. The inspector looks at the forms, the reinforcement, and the tie-in to any existing flatwork - once that’s signed off, we’re clear to pour.
Day 5 - The pour. The concrete truck arrives with a 4,000-PSI mix - that’s our standard for driveways in Plantation, not the 3,000-PSI you’d use for a sidewalk. We place it, screed it, float it, and cut control joints into the surface within the first few hours so any future cracks follow the joint lines, not a random path across your driveway. A broom finish gives you that textured non-slip surface you see on most Plantation driveways. If you chose integral color, it’s mixed in at the plant and the color runs through the full slab, not just the top eighth-inch.
Days 6-14 - Curing and the final walk. Concrete doesn’t dry - it cures through a chemical reaction with water. We recommend keeping the surface damp during the first week, especially in Plantation’s summer heat, which can flash-cure the top layer and weaken it. You can walk on it after 24 hours, but we ask homeowners to keep vehicles off for a minimum of seven days. Once the cure is solid, we pull the forms, backfill the edges, and do a final walk with you to make sure every joint, slope, and edge meets what we put in the quote.
Choices That Change Your Concrete Driveway - and What They Cost
Not all concrete driveways are the same slab. Here are the main decisions Plantation homeowners weigh, with the real trade-off on each one.
- Broom finish vs. exposed aggregate. A broom finish is the standard textured surface - good traction, no upcharge. Exposed aggregate washes off the top cement paste to reveal the stone beneath, giving a decorative pebble look at $2-$4 more per square foot. It’s striking, but it’s rougher on bare feet and harder to patch invisibly if the slab ever settles.
- Integral color vs. gray. Standard gray concrete costs you nothing extra. Integral color - mixing a pigment through the full 4-inch slab - adds $5-$10 per square foot and won’t fade like a topical stain can. The honest limit: dark colors absorb South Florida sun and can get uncomfortably hot underfoot in July.
- Stamped patterns. Stamping presses a brick, stone, or tile texture into wet concrete before it sets. It runs $8-$15 more per square foot and requires a release agent and periodic resealing every few years. Homeowners near Plantation’s golf course communities often choose this to match existing hardscape, but it does increase the lifetime maintenance cost over a straightforward broom finish.
- Rebar vs. wire mesh. We spec rebar on every Plantation driveway - our limestone shelf and the seasonal high water table make slab movement a real risk, and wire mesh tends to sink to the bottom of the pour where it does nothing. Rebar on chairs costs more upfront in material but costs nothing in “I should have done it right the first time.”
- Thickened edge vs. uniform slab. A standard 4-inch slab with a 6-inch thickened edge at the apron and along the garage lip handles the weight of daily passenger vehicles. If you park a heavy pickup, an RV, or a work truck, we step the whole slab to 5 or 6 inches - it adds roughly $1.50-$2 per square foot per extra inch of thickness.
What Concrete Driveways & Concrete Work Costs Around Plantation, FL
A new pour on a flat, accessible lot in Plantation typically falls between $4,500 and $12,000. That spread exists because every job hits differently on five variables.
Square footage drives everything. A single-width driveway off a 1950s-era Lauderdale West home might be 350 square feet. A wide two-car driveway with an approach apron and a side walkway in a newer Plantation subdivision can easily cross 900 square feet. More concrete, more rebar, more labor.
Removal of the old slab. If we’re pouring over bare dirt, the cost drops. If we’re hauling away a cracked 1960s slab with embedded steel that fought us every inch, demolition and disposal fees push the number toward the higher end.
Access for the truck. A concrete truck needs a clear shot to the pour site. Narrow side yards, overhead utility lines, or a home set far back from the street can force us to pump the concrete instead of placing it directly from the chute - a concrete pump adds $400-$800 to the job.
Finish complexity. A gray broom-finish slab is the base. Exposed aggregate, integral color, stamped patterns, or a decorative border all add per-square-foot premiums that stack quickly on a large pour.
Permit and inspection scope. Broward County fees are calculated off the job valuation, and the inspection schedule - footing, possibly a final - is baked into our timeline. If your property is in an HOA with its own architectural review process, we factor in a few extra days for that approval window before we can break ground.
Every quote we write is a fixed line-item price - not a range, not an estimate subject to a change order later. The number you see covers labor, materials, demolition, forming, pouring, finishing, and the permit. It does not include landscaping restoration beyond basic backfill and grading around the slab edges, and if we discover an unmarked underground obstruction during excavation, we’ll talk to you before we touch it. Call (844) 638-7249 to schedule a measurement and get your exact number.
How Plantation’s Housing Stock Changes a Concrete Driveway Job
Plantation was developed almost entirely between the late 1950s and mid-1980s, which means we’re pouring driveways onto properties where the original slab has been settling into Florida’s limestone shelf for 40 to 65 years. In neighborhoods like Plantation Park and Lauderdale West, we frequently dig out slabs that were poured before modern compaction standards - the base under them is often just sand and time, and it’s why you see so many cracked driveways with one panel sitting an inch higher than the next. When we remove one of these legacy slabs, we’re not just swapping concrete - we’re building a proper compacted base for the first time in the home’s history.
Broward County’s inspection thresholds sit between Miami-Dade’s stricter HVHZ rules and Palm Beach’s lighter touch, which means submittals and reinforcement specs have to be right on the county’s line - not overbuilt to a standard they don’t require, and certainly not under-documented. We schedule around the June-through-November inspection backlog that every contractor in Plantation knows is coming, and we pull permits through Broward County’s system rather than a municipal shop, which changes the paperwork sequence. Homeowners in communities with active architectural review - parts of Plantation Acres, for instance - should expect a short HOA approval window before we can start, and we help you manage that from the first site visit.
For a home whose driveway is part of a wider exterior overhaul, we coordinate directly with our Driveway & Pavers in Plantation crew to keep the entire hardscape sequenced and consistent. And for homeowners planning to maximize their property’s footprint, we often see concrete driveway work paired with a Garage Conversion ADU in Plantation project, since reconfiguring the front approach and parking layout becomes part of the same site plan conversation.
Serving Plantation, FL - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Plantation area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
Frequently Asked - Concrete Driveways & Concrete Work in Plantation
We pour in one day, but the concrete needs seven full days of curing before you can park a vehicle on it. You can walk on the surface after 24 hours. The full project from demolition to a finished, backfilled driveway typically runs 5-8 working days, with the inspection schedule and any HOA architectural review window factored in.
Yes. Broward County requires a permit for driveway replacement and new concrete flatwork connected to the right-of-way. We pull the permit, schedule the inspections, and close it out - you never have to chase paperwork. A simple slab replacement with no changes to the footprint usually moves through permitting faster than a new curb cut or a widened apron, which triggers additional review.
Integral color and stamped patterns can get close, but concrete color shifts batch-to-batch, and a slab poured 10 years ago has weathered differently than a fresh pour will look on day one. We can apply a color hardener or a stain after the cure to close the gap, and we’ll show you samples on-site before we commit. An exact match is never guaranteed - what we can promise is a deliberate, well-blended result.
Our quotes are fixed-price. The only scenario where the number moves is if we uncover something underground that no one could have known about - an unmarked septic line, a buried oil tank, or fill soil that won’t compact - and in that case we stop work, show you what we found, and give you a new number before we touch it. That’s rare in Plantation, but it’s the honest answer.
Every concrete driveway we pour in Plantation is covered by our 730-Day Done Right Promise - if it’s not done right, we make it right. That covers workmanship and the integrity of the slab. Concrete will develop hairline cracks as it cures and settles; that’s the nature of the material. Structural cracking, spalling, or a slab that sinks because the base was improperly prepared - those are warranty items, and we handle them. For a full project estimate, call (844) 638-7249 to schedule your free on-site measurement.
Start With a Free, No-Pressure Estimate in Plantation
If you’re thinking about a new concrete driveway - or replacing a cracked slab that’s been settling since the Johnson administration - we’ll come out, measure, talk through your options, and hand you a line-item fixed price you can make a real decision on. No deposit to get a quote, no sales pitch that overstays its welcome. Call (844) 638-7249 to schedule yours. We’ve been doing this work across Plantation long enough to know that a driveway is the first thing you see when you come home - it ought to look like it belongs there. Our Driveway & Pavers team handles the full scope, and for homeowners looking to build outward from the main house, we frequently coordinate concrete work alongside a New Detached ADU in Plantation project so the site plan and hardscape come together under one permit package and one crew.
Written by Derek Hollenbeck, Owner at Groundwork Construction Co., serving Plantation and Broward County with fixed-price concrete and hardscape work backed by our 730-Day Done Right Promise.