Tools and standards
Work out what you are looking at
Four things on this site do actual work rather than just explaining. Two are interactive assessments, and two are checklists you can take to an estimate. All four are free, and none of them ask for your contact details.
Interactive assessments
Repair or replace?
Ten questions about what you can see. Returns a reasoned result, the reasoning, what would change it, which options your answers rule out and why, and the questions to put to a contractor.
Start the assessment →2Crack severity assessment
Seven questions about a specific crack. Calm, non-alarmist guidance about what to do next, plus a monitoring method that answers the question that actually decides things.
Assess a crack →3Project cost planner
Seven questions about scope. Returns the likely project category, where it sits relative to other residential concrete work, and the specific factors that will move your quotes — deliberately without inventing a dollar figure.
Plan a project →4Estimate decoder
Work through one proposal against every scope item: what it clearly states, what is unclear, what you could not find, and what does not apply. Produces the questions your own answers imply.
Decode an estimate →5Compare quotes by scope
Two or three proposals side by side, item by item, so you can see where they may not describe the same work. It shows the difference between the totals you enter and never names a preferred proposal.
Compare quotes →6Project record
One place for what you have established, printable for a site visit, and carried into a request with only the useful fields — never your notes, the totals or any contractor label.
Start a record →7Inspection planner
What to look at while the work is happening, which three stages are buried under the slab within hours, and what to ask at each point. It is a planner, not an inspection.
Plan the inspections →8Change order workspace
When the scope, price, material or schedule changes mid-job, write down what changed, what is still unclear, and what to ask before you agree to it. It takes no view on the money.
Document a change →9Closeout & warranty workspace
At the end of the job: what was represented as finished, what you can see, what is still open, which records to keep and what a warranty says — every line attributed to whoever said it.
Close out a project →What these tools are, and are not
They are educational decision support built on fixed, documented rules. The same answers always produce the same result. The three estimate tools keep everything you enter in your own browser — there is no account, no upload, and nothing is transmitted until you choose to send a request.
They are not engineering determinations, structural inspections or safety assessments, and none of them can tell you whether concrete is safe to walk or drive on. The estimate tools do not tell you what work ought to cost, do not judge a total, and do not name a preferred contractor. Both read only what is visible from above — and the base, the drainage and the reinforcement are what usually decide the answer. A contractor or other qualified professional has to assess the actual site.
Homeowner standards
Two checklists for the part that costs money: choosing who does the work and understanding what you are agreeing to.
Contractor Vetting Standard
A published, versioned standard for evaluating a residential concrete contractor — with a printable interview checklist.
Read it →Estimate Comparison Checklist
A side-by-side worksheet for making two or three different-looking quotes actually comparable.
Read it →Not a certification programme. The vetting standard is a checklist for homeowners to use themselves. ConcreteOwner does not inspect, approve, certify or accredit any contractor, and no contractor can hold or display anything from it.
Background reading
If you would rather understand the mechanism before working through a tool, the guides explain why residential concrete fails in the first place.
Prefer to talk to somebody local?
If you would rather have a contractor look at it, tell us about the project and we will review whether we can match you. We will say plainly if we cannot.