Project types
Concrete driveways
The driveway has cracked, settled or deteriorated and it is the largest slab you own.
A driveway is the most demanding piece of flatwork on a typical residential property. It carries vehicle loads, takes the most weather, usually receives the most de-icing chemical, and is large enough that decisions about it involve real money. What that chemical does over a few winters is set out in salt damage to concrete.
It is also the slab where the difference between the visible surface and the invisible base shows up most clearly. Driveways fail from underneath far more often than they fail from above. What that looks like when it happens, and how to tell lost support from a worn slab, is covered in driveway settlement.
What typically goes wrong
Settlement at the apron, where the drive meets the street or the garage, is extremely common — that area often sits over disturbed ground from utility work or construction access. Panels near downspouts settle where water has been running underneath. Cracking follows loading and inadequate jointing. Surface scaling and spalling follow freeze–thaw cycling and salt.
A step at the garage threshold is one of the most frequent single complaints, and one of the most frequent lifting jobs.
Why vehicle loading changes the answer
Concrete under a car is being asked to do something a patio never is. A void under a patio is a curiosity; a void under a driveway is unsupported concrete with a vehicle on it, and it is the situation most likely to turn a hairline crack into a broken panel.
This is why voids and hollow-sounding areas under driveways are worth acting on earlier than they would be elsewhere, and why thickness and reinforcement specifications matter more here than anywhere else on a residential property.
Panel-by-panel thinking
Driveways are usually poured in panels separated by joints, which means they can often be addressed in parts. One settled panel does not necessarily mean a new driveway.
The question is whether the panels failed for a local reason or a general one. Two panels down by the same downspout is a local story. Eight panels cracking across the whole drive in the same pattern usually is not.
What moves the price
We do not publish national dollar figures. A single average applied across every site, method and market gives you a confident-looking benchmark that is wrong for your job in an unknown direction. What does transfer between jobs is the structure of the price:
- Square footage — driveways are simply large.
- Thickness and reinforcement specified for vehicle loading.
- Demolition and disposal of the existing slab.
- Base preparation, which varies enormously by what is found underneath.
- Access for trucks and equipment.
- Whether the apron and approach are included.
Local quotes decide actual pricing. If you want to compare two of them properly, the quote comparison guide covers how.
What to ask a contractor
- Is this a whole-driveway problem or a panel problem, and what makes you say so?
- For replacement: what thickness, what reinforcement, and what base preparation for vehicle loading?
- Where do the control joints go and how deep?
- Which way will water run when you are finished?
- How long before I can park on it?
Before you ask anybody for a price
Four things worth settling first. None of them needs a contractor, and none of them needs your contact details — they are simply what separates a useful conversation about a driveway you are deciding about from an expensive guess.
Cosmetic, functional or structural
We cannot tell you which of these applies to your property — nobody can from a distance. What follows is how the three differ, so you can look at your own with a clearer question in mind.
- Cosmetic is surface appearance on a drive that still carries vehicles without complaint — discolouration, light scaling, the ordinary marks of years of use.
- Functional is where the drive still works but has started costing you something: standing water, a lip at the garage, an edge breaking up where wheels ride it, a section that has dropped.
- Structural is a drive that is no longer supported across meaningful areas — sections that move under load, cracking that has broken it into pieces, or a slab that has failed through its depth rather than at its face.
- The most useful split on a drive is whether the distress is concentrated or general. Concentrated distress on an otherwise sound run is a targeted job; distress spread evenly is usually not.
What to record before requesting proposals
Contractors price what they can see. Arriving with these already noted is the difference between quotes you can compare and quotes you cannot.
- The whole run photographed end to end, not only the part that annoys you. Contractors price what they can see, and the worst spot is rarely the whole story.
- Rough dimensions — length, width, and whether there is a turning area or an apron — because area is the dominant variable in what this costs.
- Where vehicles habitually turn, park and stop, since wear concentrates there and it explains distress that otherwise looks arbitrary.
- What uses it. A heavier vehicle, or several parked to capacity with wheels on the edge, changes the right recommendation and is rarely mentioned unprompted.
Keep it in the Project Brief if you would rather not lose track of it — it prints to something you can hand to whoever comes out.
Signs that justify getting somebody out sooner
These are observations, not deadlines. Nothing here is a reason to rush a decision; they are the situations where waiting has a cost worth knowing about.
- A section visibly moves or flexes when a vehicle crosses it.
- The drop at the garage has opened enough that water is running into the joint rather than across it.
- Edges are breaking away along a flank where wheels ride, and the break is widening.
- The drive falls toward the building and water reaches the structure during ordinary rain.
What not to assume
- That the whole drive needs replacing because part of it has failed. On a long run the area dominates the price, which makes targeted work genuinely viable.
- That a new drive in the same dimensions solves a problem caused by the dimensions. If wheels ride the edge because it is too narrow for how it is used, a new one will too.
- That the cheapest proposal is comparable to the others. Preparation below the surface is where proposals differ most and where the difference is invisible afterwards.
- That replacing the surface fixes drainage. It changes what water runs across, not where the ground falls.
Common questions
Can I replace just the bad panels of my driveway?
Often, yes, particularly where the failure has a local cause. New panels will not colour-match the old ones, which bothers some homeowners more than others. Where the whole base is inadequate, panel replacement buys time rather than fixing the problem, and a contractor should tell you which situation you are in.
Is a concrete driveway better than asphalt?
They are different trade-offs — installation cost, maintenance cycle, service life, appearance and how each behaves in your climate. This platform covers concrete, so treat that as a disclosure rather than a recommendation, and get a straight comparison from someone who does both if you are genuinely undecided.
The panel by my garage has dropped and now there is a step. What is that?
That is one of the most common lifting jobs there is. It usually means the ground under that panel has lost volume — very often because water from the roof or the drive itself has been finding its way under it. Worth having someone look at where the water goes as well as at the concrete.
Work it out, or judge the quote
Related guides
Driveway cost factors
Why driveways price differently from other flatwork, and what to check in a driveway quote.
Read more →Sunken concrete
A slab that now sits lower than it should — almost always a ground problem, not a concrete problem.
Read more →Concrete leveling
Raising settled slabs back toward their original height instead of tearing them out.
Read more →Replacement and new flatwork
Removing failed concrete and pouring new — plus what separates a good pour from one that fails early.
Read more →Poor drainage around concrete
Where water goes decides how long concrete lasts — and it is the most commonly skipped part of a quote.
Read more →