B & W Concrete Services

1) The garage floor under the garage door has not heaved over the last 2 winters, the most important item. The new garage floor is steel reinforced with a vapor barrier under it, unlike the old garage floor. B&W replaced the clay under garage floor with stone. The stone drains to new 48” deep sump pump. Armstrong Plumbing did the plumbing. Added a concrete frost barrier between the driveway and the foundation under the garage door. 2) Lowered the garage floor by 4” to make the garage taller. It’s an old house and the garage was short. Since I’m tall, this was a big improvement. 3) Widened the driveway by 3’ 6”. The driveway was widened so it’s easier getting in and out of the car in the sunken driveway. The concrete looks great, especially the retaining wall and garage floor. Multiple neighbors have complimented the look of the retaining wall. 4) The pillar on the right side of the garage was moved 20” so it is easier to get in and out of the right side of the car in the garage. The pillar was moved into the frame wall between the garage and the basement. 5) Larry O’Harver boiled down my long list of requirements and numbers to an implementable solution. Quite an achievement. I don’t know much about construction. Larry and Terry took the time to explain why some of my ideas were bad ideas. 6) Wrapped the stone behind the retaining wall with Mirafi. The Mirafi prevents soil from infiltrating the stone and obstructing water flow to the drainage pipes. Some other concrete contractors didn’t want to or didn’t know how to do this. 7) Replaced the garage to basement door with an ADA door threshold. This was a big improvement over the old door’s 4” tripping hazard. 8) The frame wall between the garage and basement was replaced so the concrete work could be done. The new frame wall is on a berm 4 inches about the concrete so the dry wall doesn’t touch the garage floor and develop mold. 9) Drained the garage, driveway and behind the retaining wall to the flow line 17” below the first step while keeping the first step height under 6”. These steps went from the driveway to the front door. 10) When the basement wall leaked around the sump pump, Larry and Josh jumped on it and worked at it until it was fixed. 11) The garage floor sealing looks great. Tacky enough to drive on and slick enough to make cleaning easy. Glad I had it done. 12) The new driveway drain is a big safety improvement over the old drain’s 6” drop down from the rest of the driveway. The old driveway was a mess of cracked asphalt on concrete. The new concrete looks better with lower maintenance. 13) The sidewalk around the front and right side of the house was replaced to slope the sidewalk down from the house and remove a garden. 14) Installed a drainage pipe on the left side of the house to route water past the house towards the street. 15) B&W and HLS were very capable handling their mini front loading Bobcat excavators in the restricted garage space to dig out clay and replace it with stone. One of the St. Louis County residential inspectors said B&W was one of the better concrete companies. I think B&W is the best of the 6 or 7 I checked. Several neighbors have been impressed with B&W's work. One neighbor said I had found a concrete company that knew what they were doing. With all the items to do, I stuck around during construction to check that items were done. B&W was willing to work with me to get all the items done. I, rather than B&W, was responsible for getting St. Louis County building permits and seeing that inspections were done. There was some confusion about one inspections, so the homeowner should be very careful that all the inspections are done. Otherwise the construction work may need to be dug up to inspect. Tennant Lawn Service did the landscaping after the concrete work was done. Tom Huneke of Huneke Engineering designed the retaining wall, new driveway, new garage floor and new pillar. Tom’s most useful suggestion was making a diagram with measurements to show contractors where things go. Attached is a simplified version of the diagram.

The work was of very high quality, done quickly and with minimal disturbance to our yard in spite of the considerable amount of concrete which they had to bring in. B&W were also very responsive as we were on a short time frame, wanting to get the work done before our neighbors' house was sold.

Great work. Very positive experience.

About 2 or 3 of them worked on it. They had to work with the inspectors coming out to check the work, and also within a particular time frame. They did a really good job.