Stained decorative concrete is color driven down into the slab rather than laid on top of it, which is why it wears the way concrete wears instead of flaking off like paint. Acid stains react with the lime in the mix and leave a mottled, permanent finish; water based stains stay closer to the color you picked off the chart. We do both, along with stamped concrete and ordinary gray flatwork, as a concrete contractor serving Savannah, Georgia, Pooler, Bluffton and Hilton Head Island alike. A patio, an interior floor, a front sidewalk: same trade, same rules.
Every job starts with the concrete already on the ground, because age, cracking, patches, old sealer and oil all read through a stain that is meant to be transparent. We look at the slab before anyone talks about color. On new pours the finish matters as much as the mix, so we set rebar or wire mesh, cut the joints where they need to go, and leave a surface open enough to take color evenly. Color is the last decision, not the first.
Most bad stain work was decided before the color came out of the jug. A slab troweled too tight will not absorb much of anything, sealer rolled over a damp floor clouds, and stain laid over old adhesive or a skim patch blooms in blotches that no topcoat will hide. Much of the housing here dates to a median build year of 1971, so the driveways, patios and sidewalks we work on have usually been patched, painted or sealed already. We plan around that rather than hoping it sands off.
Doing it right is mostly preparation: grinding or stripping down to sound concrete, testing the color on your own slab instead of a sample board, and letting each coat cure on its own schedule. That is where the hours go, and it is also why a stained floor holds up long after paint on the same concrete would have started lifting. We would rather spend the extra day on the surface than come back to a finish that peeled. Call for a free estimate.
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Color soaks into cured concrete rather than sitting on top, so it reads as part of the slab. We stain patios, garage floors, a front walk or concrete sidewalk, and stamped concrete that wants a second tone. Curing compound and old sealer block penetration, so both come off first.
Acid stain is metallic salts in an acidic solution that react with lime in the slab, so color varies with the mix and the trowel work. Hard-troweled commercial concrete takes it unevenly. Any concrete contractor should neutralize the residue and test a hidden corner before staining a whole floor.
Stained decorative concrete puts color into the slab rather than on top of it. The stain reacts with the concrete or soaks into its pores, so the finish sits inside the surface, where traffic and sun cannot scuff it off the way they lift a paint film. On a Savannah house whose back patio has been down since the seventies, that difference is the whole point. The slab stays a slab. It just stops looking like one.
Median build year here is 1971, which means a great many of the driveways, walks and patios we are asked about have been in the ground for decades. Old concrete takes stain differently than a fresh pour. It has been washed, swept, patched, parked on and rained on, and every bit of that shows up in the color. So we read the slab first: how porous it is, where it was sealed before, what has soaked in.
Most of this work lands on flatwork that already exists. Front walks, garage aprons, pool decks, the concrete sidewalk running along a storefront. Stain also finishes new pours well, and when we set the slab ourselves with rebar or wire mesh over a properly compacted subgrade, the color has sound concrete underneath it. Exposed aggregate and stamped surfaces take stain too, though the texture changes how the color pools and where it reads darkest.
Trouble usually comes from what sits under the color. A slab with a failing acrylic sealer will take stain in blotches. Efflorescence pushes a white haze up through the finish months later. Patches poured at a different time than the concrete around them stay visible no matter how carefully the stain goes down, because the material itself is different. Cracks that are still moving will keep moving. We say all of that before starting rather than after.
We are a concrete contractor covering Savannah and the towns around it, Pooler included, and residential flatwork and commercial concrete both get the same attention. Any honest read on a stain job starts with someone standing on the slab, so tell us what you have: rough age, size, what is on it now. Photos help. Call for a free estimate, and bring your questions about color, because that is where most of them are.
We walk the area with you, measure it, and check drainage, slope and what the existing surface sits on. Old driveways in a housing stock built around 1971 often hide thin slabs poured over dirt. We note tree roots, downspouts and how water leaves the site.
You get the scope in writing: square footage, slab thickness, reinforcement, the stain colors and the sealer. We handle the paperwork the job requires before anything gets broken out. Nothing starts until you have read the estimate and agreed to what is on it.
Old concrete comes out in sections and gets hauled off, roots and soft spots included. We bring the subgrade to grade with compacted crushed stone, usually four inches, running it in lifts. Skipping compaction here is what cracks a concrete driveway two winters later.
Forms go in staked and strung to a slope that moves water away from the house. Rebar on chairs for driveways, wire mesh for lighter flatwork, tied and set in the middle third of the slab. Concrete installation runs in one continuous pour where the layout allows.
Finish work depends on the surface: broom texture on sidewalks, stamped or troweled where stain needs a tight face. Control joints get cut early so the slab cracks where we choose. Curing takes days, not hours, and driveways stay clear of vehicles until it is done.
Two driveways of the same size can land far apart on price, and the reasons are usually visible from the street. With the median home here built around 1971, a good deal of our work starts by taking out flatwork that has already had a long life. What moves the number after that is site condition: reach, base, thickness and steel.
| What changes the price | Which way | Why |
|---|---|---|
| An old slab or asphalt still in place | costs more | Breakout, loading and haul off are their own day of work before a single form goes down. |
| Truck can back within chute reach of the forms | costs less | Chuting straight into the forms beats wheelbarrowing across a yard or bringing in a pump. |
| Six inch slab instead of four | costs more | More yardage under every square foot, and thicker sections usually call for heavier reinforcement with them. |
| Rebar on chairs instead of wire mesh | costs more | Rebar is material plus tying time. Mesh goes down faster on light residential flatwork. |
| Soft, filled or spongy subgrade | costs more | Weak ground has to come out and be replaced with compacted stone so the slab does not settle and crack. |
| Ground already falls away from the house | costs less | A driveway or patio that drains on existing grade needs less fill, less forming, and no added drain line. |
| Trees, stumps or heavy roots in the pour area | costs more | Roots have to be removed and the voids backfilled. Roots left under concrete lift it within a few seasons. |
| Stain paired with stamping or exposed aggregate | costs more | Every added step, the texture, the release, the second color, is more hand labor on the finished surface. |
Compare bids on the parts that are easy to leave vague. Ask each contractor for slab thickness, reinforcement type and spacing, base material and depth, control joint layout, and whether removal and disposal of the old surface sits inside the number or gets added later. On stained work, ask which product, how many coats of sealer, and what resealing looks like down the road. Bids that spell all of that out can be compared against each other. A bid that is one number cannot.
Not directly. Stain has to reach the concrete itself, and a sealer sits on top as a barrier that blocks it. We strip the old sealer first, usually with a chemical stripper and a grinder where the film is stubborn, then check absorption by wetting a test area. If water beads, more stripping is needed. Once the slab drinks water evenly, it will take stain.
Yes, if the slab is sound. We look for deep cracking, spalling, heaving and oil saturation, since stain will not hide any of those and can make them more visible. Older driveways sometimes carry patches in a different concrete than the original, and those patches take color differently. A slab with good structure and a clean surface is a good candidate for staining.
The color itself is permanent in the sense that acid stain reacts chemically with the concrete and does not sit on the surface. What wears is the sealer above it. Outdoor sealer on a driveway or walkway takes sun and traffic, and it dulls before the color does. Resealing every few years keeps the finish looking the way it did originally.
No, and that is the nature of the product. Stain reacts with the cement paste, so it follows whatever is already in the slab: trowel marks, density changes, the line where one pour met another, spots where rebar or wire mesh sits close to the surface. Newer flatwork tends to read more evenly than a repaired older slab. Variation is the look, not a defect.
Browns, tans and soft greens do the most work here, mainly because they sit close to what concrete already wants to be and age quietly. With a median build year of 1971, much of the housing stock we work on carries brick and painted siding, and earth tones tend to settle against both. We put samples on your actual slab before committing, since the same color reads differently on every pour.
Acid stain, outdoors. It reacts with the concrete and holds up under direct sun in a way dyes generally do not, since many dyes fade with UV exposure. Dyes give brighter and more uniform color, which makes them a reasonable choice for a covered patio or interior slab. For a driveway, sidewalk or open patio, we use acid stain.