Concrete and Grading Around Hodges
North of Greenwood, Highway 25 runs through Hodges and the houses thin out fast. Lots here are measured in acres, mailboxes stand a long way from front doors, and nearly every property has a shop, a pole barn or plans for one. That shapes the work A1 Concrete LLC does in Hodges. More of it starts with a machine moving dirt than with a concrete truck.
Clearing and grading come first
Much of the land around Hodges is pine and hardwood that has never been built on, or was pasture a generation ago and has grown back. Before a house pad, a drive or a slab can go in, the site has to be opened, the stumps and brush handled, and the ground cut to a grade that sheds water. That is the clearing and grading side of the work, and on rural lots it is often the larger share of the job.
Storm damage added to it. When Hurricane Helene came through in September 2024, thousands of trees went down across Greenwood County. Owners of wooded lots are still dealing with leaning trunks, root holes and washed-out sections of lane.
Most addresses around Hodges sit outside any town limits, so Greenwood County is the office to ask about building and land-disturbance review on larger projects. When a job disturbs enough ground to need erosion control, we put silt fence along the low side before the grading starts, so the red clay stays on your property when the next storm hits.
Long drives and shop slabs
A long gravel drive is a fact of life out here, and so are the ruts and washouts that come with it. Around 47 inches of rain falls in a typical year, a lot of it in hard summer storms, and water running down a wheel track will carry the gravel to the bottom of the hill. Sometimes the answer is regrading and a crown so the water leaves the drive sideways. Sometimes it is concrete on the steep stretch, at the road, or for the last run up to the house. We talk through paving a long Hodges drive in concrete section by section, because few people need the whole length done.
Shop slabs are the other steady request. What goes on the slab decides how it is built: a pickup and a workbench ask less of it than a tractor with a loaded implement or a camper. We ask about that first, then set the thickness, the stone base and the joint layout to suit. The slab gets a slight fall toward the door so wash water and blown-in rain run out and not back to the wall.
The clay under all of it
Red Piedmont clay is hard as brick in August and slick as soap in a wet March. It swells and shrinks with the weather, which is what cracks slabs poured straight on it. We cut the topsoil and soft material out, bring in stone, compact it in layers and only then set forms. On a hillside pad, the cut bank above may need a low retaining wall and a drain behind it so the slope does not creep onto the slab.
Services we bring out here
Grading, Clearing and Site Work
Site work for owners and builders, done with erosion control in place.
Concrete Driveways and Flatwork
Built on a compacted stone base with joints and mix chosen for red clay.
Concrete Work Across Greenwood
Licensed, insured Greenwood concrete crew with free written quotes.
Country Concrete and Site Work in Cokesbury
Licensed and insured, with a free quote.
Getting a price
Nobody can price a rural job from the road. Someone from our crew comes out, walks the route of the drive or the footprint of the slab, checks the fall of the land and looks at how trucks and equipment will get in. Every job is priced after someone has walked the ground and measured it, with the price in writing before a truck is ordered. We are licensed and insured, and we work for homeowners, farms and commercial sites. Send the quote form with a few lines about the job: how long the drive is, how big the building will be, whether the lot is wooded. The phone is answered around the clock, and the quote form on this site works any hour too. The same crews run over to Cokesbury and up the highway to Ware Shoals, so jobs in that direction can often be looked at in one trip.
Open 24 hours. Call any time or send the form.