Exposed Aggregate Finishes in Alpharetta, GA

Exposed aggregate turns up all over metro Atlanta, and most of the houses we pour for here went in during the mid nineties. The median home in Alpharetta was built in 1996, which puts a lot of original flatwork at right around thirty years old, poured to the standards of that decade, and much of it is finished. People call us because the driveway is spalling or the front walk has gone chalky and rough underfoot. Exposed aggregate answers that well: stone at the surface, washed clean, holding its color the way a broom finish never does.

Replacement is most of what we do around here, not new construction. There is already a slab in place, and what sits under it decides how the job goes. Some driveways break out clean over solid base, while others are sitting on ground that moved years ago, and that gets corrected before any new concrete goes back down over it. We do the same on sidewalks, patios and commercial concrete for smaller properties. Roswell falls inside the same range we cover, and the work there runs on the same terms as anything else.

The failures we see repeat themselves: aggregate washed too early loses stone and leaves bare spots that never blend in. Washed too late, the surface stays closed and the whole thing reads as gray concrete with a little texture in it. Thin sealer over exposed stone clouds up and peels off in sheets. A patch poured against a slab from the nineties rarely matches either, since the original stone is long out of supply and the old surface has weathered. Once a run fails in more than one spot, replacing it beats chasing repairs.

Getting it right is mostly a question of time. Prep is the slow part: grade, forms, rebar or wire mesh, and a base compacted properly before a truck ever shows up on the street. The wash window is short and it waits for nobody, so we bring enough hands to hit it clean, and after that the slab cures on its own schedule with no hurrying it along. A driveway poured this way sits in front of the house for decades in plain view, which is reason enough to take care with the parts nobody sees.

Most of what sets the number on an exposed aggregate job is decided before a truck is ordered, and you can see nearly all of it by walking your own property. What sits there now, how close concrete gets to the forms, what the slab has to carry, and where the water runs.

Between bids, compare the parts that are easiest to leave out. Slab thickness. Rebar or wire mesh, and at what spacing. Whether the base is compacted stone or the dirt that was already there. Whether demolition, haul off and sealer sit inside the number or get added later. Get those in writing and the bids become comparable.