Concrete contractor in East Palo Alto - driveways and patios that drain right

The city's Building Services Division decides that, and its Permit Center on Tate Street issues building permits. Grading and work in the sidewalk or street go through the city's engineering permits instead. If your job needs one, we pull it and set up the inspections, and anything reaching the sidewalk we plan with public works from the start.

The city gets back with next steps within two business days of an emailed application, and a job that isn't approved over the counter goes through a 30-day review. Resubmitted plans get two-week rechecks if they're needed. We build that wait into the schedule before anything gets torn out.

The city charges a penalty fee for work started without a required building permit and says it reports the contractor to the state license board. It also goes looking for unpermitted work, so the permit question is worth settling before the old slab comes out.

Yes, the city checks the contractor's license status with the California State License Board as part of its permit process. If a contractor registered as having no workers shows up with a crew, the city stops the job until a workers' comp certificate is provided. We're licensed and fully insured.

It can still crack, but control joints, shallow cuts that give the slab a planned place to crack, keep it from cracking wherever it likes. The bigger fix is a base that's dug out and packed so the slab doesn't settle with the dirt, and if the budget's tight, I'd cut the fancy finish before I'd cut that.