How to Choose a Concrete Contractor in Metro Detroit

The fastest way to sort concrete contractors is to verify the license, then read the quote. Michigan licenses residential contractors and lets you check any of them free in about two minutes — and a real quote will tell you the slab thickness, what happens to the base underneath, and what's being done about reinforcement. Most bad outcomes trace back to skipping one of those two steps.

Step one: verify the license

Michigan requires a state license for residential construction or repair work valued at $600 or more, which covers essentially every driveway, patio or garage floor job. Licenses are issued by the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) through its Bureau of Construction Codes, and there's a free online lookup anyone can use.

Ask for the license number before anything else. Licensed contractors generally put it on contracts, invoices and advertising, so a contractor who can't produce one has already told you something. Then run it and check four things: that the license is active rather than expired or revoked, that the license type matches the work, the expiration date (Michigan licenses run in three-year terms), and whether there's any disciplinary history attached.

One detail worth knowing: hiring an unlicensed contractor doesn't just mean lower standards. It also cuts you off from the state's recovery mechanisms if the job goes wrong. The five minutes this takes is the highest-return five minutes in the whole process.

Step two: read the quote properly

A real concrete quote describes what's going under and inside the slab, not just what's on top of it. If a quote is one line — square footage times a rate, plus a total — you have no way to compare it against anything, because the number could represent completely different work.

Here's what should be written down before you sign:

• Slab thickness. Four inches is the residential standard for normal vehicle traffic, with thicker sections where the driveway meets the street and anywhere heavy vehicles sit. If thickness isn't stated, it isn't promised. See our guide on driveway thickness in Michigan.
• What happens to the base. This is the single biggest differentiator between a slab that lasts thirty years and one that fails in three, and it's the easiest place to quietly save money. The quote should say the old material is being removed and the sub-base compacted — not that new concrete is going over whatever is already there.
• Reinforcement. Wire mesh or rebar, and how it's being supported so it actually sits within the slab rather than on the ground.
• Control joints. Concrete shrinks and cracks as it cures; joints decide where. The quote should indicate a joint plan rather than leaving it to chance. We explain the mechanics in control joints explained.
• Tear-out and haul-away. Removing and disposing of the old concrete is real cost and real labor. Confirm it's included rather than assumed.
• Permits. Requirements vary by city across Metro Detroit, and a contractor who works locally should know which apply and handle the filing. Our permit guide covers what each community requires.

Why the cheapest bid is usually cheapest for a reason

When one bid comes in dramatically under the others, something has been left out — and it's almost always one of the items above. Base prep, thickness, reinforcement and haul-away are invisible in the finished product on day one and decisive by year three. That's exactly why they're where corners get cut.

The useful move is to make the bids comparable. Ask every contractor to state thickness and base preparation in writing. Very often the cheap bid stops being cheap once it's describing the same scope as the others, and occasionally it turns out to be a genuinely efficient outfit — which you'd never have known without asking.

The three things that actually get shorted

In practice, almost every failed slab we tear out was shorted in one of three specific ways. All three are invisible once the concrete cures, which is exactly why they're the places money gets saved. Here's what each looks like and how to check it before it's too late.

1. No base at all

We have torn out driveways that were poured directly onto dirt and clay — no compacted aggregate underneath, nothing. It looked fine the day it was finished and the homeowner had no way to know. In Michigan clay, that slab is finished: the ground holds water, freezes, heaves, and the concrete cracks and settles with nowhere to drain.

How to check it: ask to see the base before the pour, and take a photo. You should be looking at compacted aggregate, not soil. This is a five-minute check on a job that's meant to last thirty years, and any legitimate contractor will be glad to walk you through it — the prep is the part we're proud of.

2. Two inches of concrete in a four-inch quote

This one is common enough that we've torn out plenty of jobs because of it: the quote says four inches, the customer pays for four inches, and the slab is two. On a driveway carrying vehicle weight, that's not a minor shortfall — it's roughly half the structural capacity that was paid for, and it will crack under normal use.

How to check it: look at the depth of the forms before the pour, and measure the slab edge at the apron before anything gets backfilled against it. Once the edges are buried and the lawn goes back in, you'll never see it again.

3. A weaker mix than quoted

Concrete is specified by compressive strength, and a lower-PSI mix costs less per yard. Substituting a weaker mix than what was quoted is invisible on day one and shows up years later as surface failure and cracking.

How to check it: ask to see the ready-mix delivery ticket. Every load comes from the plant with a ticket stating the mix design, and it's the single easiest document to verify. A contractor pouring what they quoted has no reason to mind you looking at it. (Mix matters in other ways too — see our note on Type 1L cement in Michigan.)

Questions worth asking

• Who is actually on site? Some companies estimate with one person and subcontract the pour to a crew you've never met.
• What's the mix, and is it air-entrained? Michigan concrete needs entrained air to survive freeze-thaw cycling. Worth knowing they can answer.
• How long before I can walk on it and park on it? A straight answer here signals someone who explains rather than assumes. Ours is in how long concrete takes to cure.
• What's your warranty, and what does it exclude?
• Can I see a job you finished two or three years ago? New work photographs beautifully. Concrete that has been through a few Michigan winters tells you far more.

Red flags

Some of these are outright scams and some just correlate with bad outcomes, but all of them are worth slowing down for:

• They ask you to pull the permit. This is the one homeowners most often agree to without understanding it, and it's a serious signal. A licensed contractor pulls permits in their own name as a matter of course. When they ask you to pull it instead, it usually means they can't — because they aren't licensed, aren't registered with your city, or don't want the inspection tied to their name. It also transfers the liability onto you: Michigan law lets a homeowner act as their own builder without a license on their own residence, but the permit applications spell out that the homeowner then becomes legally responsible for completing the work and correcting any code violations under that permit. You would be assuming the contractor's responsibility for their work. Decline, and treat it as a reason to keep looking.
• Leftover material from another job. The classic door-to-door pitch. Legitimate contractors schedule and order for your job specifically.
• A large deposit demanded up front. A modest deposit to hold a schedule slot is normal; most of the money before work starts is not. Michigan's Builders Trust Fund Act treats misappropriating contractor deposits as a criminal matter, but recovering money afterward is far harder than not overpaying in the first place.
• Pressure to decide today. Real schedules book out. Urgency is a sales tactic.
• No written contract, or no license number on it.
• Cash only, no invoice. You'll have no record if you need to make a claim.
• Vagueness about the base. If someone won't commit to what's going underneath, assume the answer is "not much."

The warranty question

A one-year workmanship warranty covering labor and materials is a reasonable standard for residential flatwork, and it's what we offer. What matters more than the length is knowing what's excluded.

The big one: surface damage from road salt is generally treated as outside damage rather than a defect, so it typically isn't covered by any contractor's warranty. That's not a loophole, it's how the industry works — but it does mean the first winter is on you to handle correctly. We wrote up why rock salt is so hard on new concrete because it's the most common way a good pour gets damaged early.

Also worth asking what happens if a crack shows up. Some cracking is normal and expected; joints exist precisely because concrete moves. A contractor who promises crack-free concrete is either inexperienced or not being straight with you. The honest version is that joints control where cracks go, and our guide to why concrete driveways crack explains the difference between normal and a real problem.

A Michigan-specific note on timing

The pouring window here runs roughly April through October, and good crews fill up. If you're calling in July for work you want done this year, you're already competing for a shrinking number of slots. If you're calling in January, you have your pick of the schedule and a contractor with time to actually walk the job with you.

Beware anyone with immediate availability in peak season. Occasionally it's a cancellation. More often it means they aren't busy, and in a trade this dependent on reputation, that's worth understanding before you sign.

What this looks like on our end

We're a family-run crew, and the person who gives you the estimate is on the job when it's poured — which is the main reason we can say what's going into your slab without checking with anyone. Every quote we write states thickness, base preparation and reinforcement, because those are the things you're actually buying. You can get an instant ballpark online in a couple of minutes, then a free on-site measure for a firm number. Whether you hire us or someone else, run the license and read the quote.