Concrete Contractors in Plantation, FL

Plantation is a Tree City, and concrete contractors working there spend a lot of time where pavement meets roots. The Arbor Day Foundation first gave the city that designation in 1980, and many older streets have big shade trees along driveways and walks. Those trees are a large part of why people like living there. They are also the usual reason a driveway panel lifts or a walk cracks.

Born on drained land

Frederick C. Peters bought about 10,000 acres here in 1939. The Old Plantation Water Control District was chartered in 1946 to drain the land, and Plantation Homes Inc. built the first houses in 1947 on East Acre Drive, advertised with the line "A Full Acre with Every Home." Flooding was a real problem early on: storms in 1948 breached a dike, and house sales halted in 1949. The city incorporated on April 23, 1953. Plantation still sits at only about 9 feet of elevation and averages 66.64 inches of rain a year, with September the wettest month at 9.45 inches.

When roots lift concrete

A lifted slab usually means a root has grown under the edge and is pushing up as it thickens. The fix depends on the tree and the slab:

• Small lift, healthy slab. Grinding a lip flush can buy time, but the root will keep growing.
• Panel replacement. We remove the lifted panel, and with your approval and an arborist's input where needed, prune the offending root and install a root barrier before pouring.
• Rerouting. Sometimes the better answer is to change the shape of a walk or widen a planting area so the tree has room.

We never cut major roots without discussing it with you first, because damaging a large tree near a house creates a different problem.

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Expanding a driveway the right way

Plantation's code enforcement guidance asks that vehicles park fully on a driveway or in a garage, carport or accessory building, not on the swale or across the sidewalk. It also calls for a permit to expand a driveway. Many owners here have more cars than their original drive was built for, so an expansion is a common job. We handle the permit question for your address, tie the new slab into the old one with a proper joint, and keep the expansion clear of tree roots where we can.

Larger lots in Plantation Acres

Plantation Acres, annexed in 1973 along with Melaleuca Isles, is designated a Special Public Interest Rural District. Lots there are larger and the feel is rural, so the concrete needs are different: longer driveways, slabs for workshops and outbuildings, and patios set back in the trees. Shaded slabs stay damp longer and gather leaf litter, so we lean toward broom finishes with good traction and sealers that handle moisture.

Room for the next generation of trees

In a city that has kept its Tree City status since 1980, new trees keep going in. When you plant one that will grow large, keep new slabs a reasonable distance from the trunk and leave planting strips wide enough for roots to spread. When we replace a root-lifted panel, we talk through whether the walk can be reshaped to give an existing tree more room, so the new concrete is not lifted by the same root.