Concrete Work Along the Saluda in Ware Shoals
Ware Shoals grew up around a textile mill on the Saluda River, and the town still shows it. Rows of mill houses climb the hill above the water on short, steep streets, with front steps, narrow drives and sidewalks that have been in service far longer than their builders planned. The town sits where Greenwood, Abbeville and Laurens counties meet, and the country around it is rolling ground cut by creeks running down to the river.
For a concrete crew that adds up to slope and water, in that order. A1 Concrete LLC comes up Highway 25 from Greenwood to work here, and almost every job we look at in Ware Shoals has a grade problem attached to it.
Mill-town lots and the hill
The mill village lots are small and close together. A driveway may be one car wide and pitched hard toward the street or, worse, toward the house. Sidewalk sections have tilted where the ground under them moved, and old steps have pulled away from porches. None of that is unusual for concrete this old on red clay, which swells when wet and shrinks when dry and takes the slab along with it.
Tight lots change how we work. There may be no room to turn a truck, so concrete is chuted from the street or wheeled in. Breaking out the old slab has to be done without shaking a neighbor's porch or blocking a shared drive. We plan the tear-out, the haul-off and the pour as one job so the yard is not open any longer than it needs to be. If that sounds like your place, read about replacing a steep mill-village driveway and what goes under the new one.
Where a yard has been cut into the hill, the bank has to be held. Stacked timbers and loose block from decades ago are leaning all over town. We build walls and drains for a hillside yard with stone backfill and pipe behind them, because a wall with wet clay pressing on it does not stay straight.
What we pour here
Driveways, parking pads, front walks, steps down to the street, patios and carport slabs make up most of it. We are licensed and insured and take commercial work as well as residential, so walks and pads for the shops and churches in town are part of the mix. Outside the village, on the farms and wooded lots toward the county lines, the requests turn to shop slabs, grading and clearing.
On sloped drives we broom the surface across the fall so tires and shoes grip when it is wet, and we place the joints closer than we would on a flat slab. Summer heat sets the schedule. Pours are timed for early morning, and we watch the forecast from the National Weather Service office at Greenville-Spartanburg, which covers this area, for heat and for the thunderstorms that can ruin a fresh surface in minutes.
Services we bring out here
Concrete Driveways and Flatwork
Built on a compacted stone base with joints and mix chosen for red clay.
Retaining Walls and Drainage
Built with stone backfill and drain pipe so clay cannot push them over.
Concrete and Grading Around Hodges
Grading and concrete for Hodges acreage along Highway 25, quoted on site.
Concrete for Farm and Home Lots in Donalds
Licensed and insured, and the quote is free.
Drainage near the river
Everything in Ware Shoals drains toward the Saluda sooner or later. With around 47 inches of rain a year, and much of it coming in heavy bursts, water moves fast across these lots. It runs down a driveway into a carport, pools against the house at the bottom of a cut, or carves a gully beside the steps. We look at where the water comes from before deciding where concrete goes. Often the fix is a regraded swale that turns the flow around the house, or a French drain along the uphill side to catch water moving through the soil. On a new drive, a slight cross slope sends runoff to the side and keeps it from racing down the middle to the garage door. When a job means disturbing ground near a creek or on a steep bank, silt fence goes in first so the clay does not wash downhill. Getting started is simple. Fill in the quote form and describe the job in the message box: what is there now, roughly how big it is, and which way the yard falls. The phone is answered around the clock, and the quote form on this site works any hour too. We work both directions from here, down to Hodges and across to Donalds, so a visit is easy to fit in.
Open 24 hours. Call any time or send the form.