We work on homes across Seminole

Many Seminole driveways are old poured concrete

Most of the houses in Seminole went up during the long building boom that filled in Pinellas County after the war. The typical home is a single story ranch on concrete block, with a carport or garage and a poured concrete driveway out front. Plenty of those driveways are the ones the house came with. Years of heat and summer rain crack them along the joints and make the corners sink. Oil and mildew stains soak into old concrete, and pressure washing can only lighten them.

Patching a cracked slab rarely holds up. New concrete does not bond well to old concrete, so the patch shows as a different color and often cracks again at its edge. Pavers handle the problem differently. Each paver is a separate piece set on a compacted base, so the surface can move a little with the ground without cracking. If one area settles or gets stained, we lift those pavers and reset them without tearing out the rest of the driveway.

The work starts under the surface. The old driveway has to come out, and the ground has to be dug to the depth the base needs. We grade the area so rain runs away from the house and the garage door, then compact the base before any pavers go down. The street end matters too. If the slope there does not match the edge of the road, water sits in a puddle right where you step out of the car.

• Old concrete dug out before the new base goes in
• Ground graded so water runs away from the house
• Base compacted before any pavers are laid
• Paver color and pattern picked with you
• Street end sloped to meet the road edge

Oak roots and sandy soil move pavers

Seminole has a lot of big, old trees. Live oaks shade whole streets, and their roots spread wide just below the surface. A root that grows under a driveway or a walkway pushes up on whatever sits on top of it. Under concrete, that pressure shows up as a crack. Under pavers, it shows up as a hump you can trip on, and the joints around it open up.

The ground here is mostly sand, and sand moves when water runs through it. Summer storms dump heavy rain in a short time, and it pours off roofs and across yards. If a paver area has weak edges or a thin base, that water carries the sand out from under the border rows. Those rows sink first. Then the pavers start to spread apart and rock when you step on them.

So we look at the whole yard before we plan the layout. We note where the trees stand and where roof water lands, and we set the paver area and the grade to deal with both. Homes on lower ground near Lake Seminole and Long Bayou need the most care, because water has fewer places to go. Getting the base and the slope right the first time costs less than resetting a sunken driveway later.

Seminole pool decks get hot and slippery

Many Seminole homes have a pool out back, often under a screen enclosure. The deck around it is frequently the original concrete that was poured when the pool went in. Those decks crack the same way the driveways do. The smooth finish also gets slippery when it is wet, and in summer it gets hot enough to hurry you across barefoot. We install pool decks with pavers or travertine, and both give bare feet a better grip than worn concrete.

Shade and humidity cause another problem. Pavers under a screen or near a tree turn green and black with mildew, and weeds grow up through the joint sand. We pressure wash pavers and pool decks, then seal them. Sealing helps the joint sand stay in place and makes the next cleaning easier. A customer wrote on Google: "They did an awesome job sealing our pool deck! It looks fantastic."

The backyard is also where people want the most say in how things look. Patios and custom walkways come up in our Google reviews more than almost any other job. We help you choose a color and a pattern that suit the house, whether that means matching pavers you already have or starting fresh. If the pool deck and a patio by the back door should look like one space, we plan them as one job.

Getting a price in Seminole

Call Citrus Pavers at (813) 330-4403, or send us the details through the form on this page. Tell us what you want built or fixed and where it sits on the property. We offer online estimates, and we can also come out to your Seminole home to look at the ground and the drainage in person. Either way, you get the price in writing before any work starts.