Concrete Contractors in Harrisburg, PA

Concrete Contractors Harrisburg builds and repairs driveways, patios, stamped surfaces, sidewalks, curbs, steps and stoops for homeowners in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and the towns around it. Harrisburg has been a city since its 1860 charter, sits on the Susquehanna River as the seat of Dauphin County, and counted 50,099 residents in the 2020 census. For concrete contractors in Harrisburg, that history shapes the job: old housing, narrow lots, sidewalks the homeowner is responsible for, and winters that keep testing every slab.

The housing stock decides the work

According to Census data summarized by Point2Homes, the median Harrisburg home was built in 1947. More than 43 percent of homes predate 1940, and only about 9 percent were built between 1990 and 2019. Roughly 43 percent of homes are single-unit attached houses, which in Harrisburg mostly means rowhouses and twins, while only 14 percent are detached single-family homes.

In practice, a lot of concrete work in the city is not big driveways. It is:

• Front steps and stoops that have settled, cracked or pulled away from a brick facade
• Public sidewalk panels lifted by street trees or broken by decades of freezing
• Curbs that have crumbled at the gutter line
• Small rear patios and parking pads off a back alley

Out in the suburbs, the picture changes to postwar ranches and two-story homes with attached garages, where the driveway, the walk and the back patio are the usual projects.

Harrisburg puts the sidewalk on the owner

This is the part many new homeowners do not expect. The City Engineer's page quotes Ordinance 9-107: owners of property abutting a public street are required to construct, pave and curb the sidewalk and keep it in good repair. If a panel in front of your house heaves or breaks, fixing it is your job, not the city's.

The work itself is also regulated. Under Chapter 9-103 of the city code, cutting any public sidewalk or street needs a permit from the City Engineer, and curb, sidewalk and driveway cuts are applied for in the owner's name or by a contractor acting for the owner. The code sets a $25 application fee for sidewalk and curb-only work, inspection fees that start at $60 for up to three square yards, and a bond or per-square-yard security. Work has to be restored within six months of the permit. We take care of the application and the inspection as part of the job, and we build the fees into your quote so nothing shows up later.

For sidewalk questions the city lists 3-1-1, or (717) 255-3040 from outside the city.

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Weather: wet, freezing and salted

Wikipedia's climate table for Harrisburg International Airport shows January averaging a high of 38.6 degrees and a low of 23.0, with about 29.9 inches of snow and 44.23 inches of total precipitation a year. That mix is hard on concrete. Winter days often climb above freezing and nights drop below it, so water that soaks into a slab in the afternoon freezes inside it overnight. Add road and sidewalk salt, which keeps the surface wet and adds more freeze-thaw swings, and you get the flaking, pitting and spalling seen on so many city steps and walks.

What holds up is not complicated, but it has to be done every time:

• Air-entrained concrete on all exterior work, which gives freezing water room to expand
• A compacted stone base, so water drains away from the underside of the slab
• Thickness suited to the load, from walks and steps to driveways that carry trucks
• Joints placed on a plan, so shrinkage cracks run where we want them
• No salt on new concrete during its first winter

Historic districts and what is under the ground

Wikipedia notes that Harrisburg has six municipal historic districts. Under the city's Historic Overlay District chapter, a building permit for regulated exterior work visible from a street, alley or sidewalk is not issued without a certificate of appropriateness from the review process run through the Historical Architectural Review Board. If you live in one of those districts and want new front steps or a different look at the entry, we check with the city before we price the final design.

Below the surface, much of the valley around Harrisburg is limestone and dolomite country. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection describes karst, the landscape that forms on that rock, as prone to sinkholes and underground drainage, and the state's Geological Survey has mapped sinkholes and karst features across the river in Cumberland County. When a slab keeps sinking in one spot, we look at drainage and what is below before we simply lift it again.

Our six services

• Concrete driveways: tear-out and replacement, widening, aprons and parking pads.
• Concrete patios: broom, colored and exposed-aggregate slabs, including small rowhouse back patios.
• Stamped concrete: slate, stone and brick patterns for patios, entries and borders.
• Sidewalks and curbs: public walks and curbs in front of your property, with the city permit.
• Concrete steps and stoops: rowhouse front steps, landings and rear steps, poured in place.
• Concrete repair and leveling: lifting sunken panels, resurfacing, crack sealing and partial replacement.

How a job runs

Visit and measure. We look at the area with you, check drainage and access for the concrete truck, and note anything in the public right-of-way.

Written quote. Each part of the job priced on its own line, with repair options next to replacement when they make sense.

Permits. City sidewalk and curb permits, and any borough or township approval your address needs.

Prep and pour. Old concrete removed, soft soil dug out, stone compacted, forms set, then the pour, finish and joints.

Handoff. You get written dates for foot traffic, cars and sealing. HomeGuide's driveway guide says to keep cars off new concrete for at least seven days.

Most exterior concrete in central Pennsylvania is poured between spring thaw and late fall. If you call in November, we will tell you honestly whether to pour now with cold-weather protection or wait for spring. You can reach us at (717) 616-2142.

Most of our work is in Harrisburg itself, from Midtown and Uptown to Allison Hill and the blocks near Downtown. We also work in the towns around the city. Across the Susquehanna that includes Camp Hill, Lemoyne, New Cumberland and Mechanicsburg in Cumberland County. On the Dauphin County side we cover Steelton, Middletown, Hummelstown and Hershey to the south and east, and Colonial Park and Linglestown to the north and east. Each town page covers what we found about local housing and, where the borough or township publishes them, its rules for sidewalks, driveways and permits. Those rules are not the same as the city's, so we check them for every address.