Flatwork is the day-in, day-out work of a concrete crew. Garage floors, sidewalks, shop slabs, pool decks, pads for the things that sit in your yard. Nobody photographs it, and it is exactly the work that shows whether a crew knows what it is doing. A flat slab poured on a properly compacted base with the right mix and joints cut on time will outlive the building it serves. The same slab poured on loose fill with a wet mix and no joints will map-crack before its second Dubuque winter.
We pour flatwork across Dubuque and the Tri-State area for homeowners, builders, and small commercial.
Flatwork we pour
- Garage floors — replacement, additions, and new construction
- Sidewalks and walkways — front walks, side yards, garden paths, ADA-compliant commercial walks
- Basement floors — full replacement over new base and vapor barrier
- Shop and outbuilding slabs — pole barns, detached shops, machine sheds
- Shed and gazebo pads — sized and squared to the kit
- Equipment pads — HVAC condensers, generators, hot tubs, fire pit bases, AC mini-splits
- Pool decks and aprons — textured for slip resistance, coordinated with the pool installer
- Loading and approach aprons — for shops, barns, and small commercial
Driveways and patios are flatwork as well; both are common enough here that we quote them on their own pages. See concrete driveways and concrete patios.
Spec by application
| Application | Thickness | Reinforcement | Mix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walkway / sidewalk | 4” | Fiber mesh | 4,000 PSI air-entrained |
| Garage floor (residential) | 4” | 6x6 #10 WWF | 4,000 PSI |
| Basement floor | 4” | Fiber mesh | 4,000 PSI non-air |
| Shed / outbuilding pad | 4” | 6x6 #10 WWF | 4,000 PSI air-entrained |
| Pool deck | 4” | 6x6 #10 WWF | 4,000 PSI air-entrained |
| Hot tub pad | 6” | #4 rebar grid @ 16” | 4,500 PSI |
| Shop floor (heavy use) | 6” | #4 rebar grid @ 16” | 4,500 PSI |
| Equipment pad | 4-6” | Fiber or rebar | 4,000 PSI |
Base for every pour: 4 to 6 inches of compacted Class 5 gravel, plate-compacted in lifts. Exterior pours run 5 to 7 percent entrained air. Control joints sawcut within 24 hours at spacing no greater than 30 times the slab thickness, which is 10 feet on a 4-inch slab.
Why air entrainment matters here
Dubuque sits in one of the harder freeze-thaw climates in the country. The Tri-State area runs through the freezing point dozens of times between November and March, and each cycle drives water in the concrete’s pore structure to expand.
Air-entrained concrete carries microscopic bubbles that give that water somewhere to go. Without them, the surface spalls. It is the single most common reason a slab in this area fails early, it is invisible in the finished product, and it costs almost nothing to specify correctly at the time of the pour.
Every exterior slab we place in Dubuque is air-entrained. Interior floors are not, because they never freeze and the air content would prevent a hard-troweled finish.
Finishes
- Broom finish — the standard for exterior flatwork, slip-resistant, lowest cost
- Hard trowel — smooth, for garage floors, basements, and shop floors
- Salt finish — light texture, common on pool decks
- Exposed aggregate — decorative texture without a stamp
- Stamped and stained — see stamped and decorative concrete
Dubuque pricing, 2026
| Scope | Range |
|---|---|
| Sidewalk / walkway, 4” broom | $8 - $13 per sq ft |
| Garage floor replacement, 2-car (approx 460 sq ft) | $3,000 - $5,200 |
| Basement floor replacement (1,000 sq ft) | $7,000 - $10,500 |
| Shop floor, reinforced 6” (24x40) | $9,500 - $14,000 |
| Shed / gazebo pad (10x12) | $1,000 - $1,700 |
| Pool deck (500-800 sq ft) | $4,500 - $10,500 |
| Hot tub pad, 6” reinforced | $900 - $1,800 |
| HVAC or generator pad | $250 - $700 |
Tearout and haul-away of an existing slab adds $2 to $4 per square foot. Sites with poor access, steep grade, or a slab over rebar run toward the top of that range.
Base prep is where flatwork is won or lost
The soil around Dubuque is not one thing. Loess silt, glacial till, and shallow limestone bedrock all turn up within a few blocks of each other, and the bluff neighborhoods add fill of uncertain age. A slab is only as good as what it sits on.
What that means on a job:
- We probe the subgrade before quoting anything thicker than a walkway
- Soft or organic material gets dug out and replaced with compacted rock, not covered over
- Fill is compacted in lifts, not dumped and driven on
- Basement pours get a 10-mil vapor barrier over washed rock, because moisture drive through a Dubuque basement slab is real and it will ruin a floor coating later
- Slabs abutting a foundation or an existing slab get an isolation joint so the two can move independently
Crews that skip this stage are faster and cheaper on the day. The bill arrives three winters later.
Basement floor replacement
Older Dubuque neighborhoods — the West End, the North End, Cardiff Heights, and the historic blocks in Galena and Bellevue — turn up basement slabs poured thin, at 2 or 3 inches, with no vapor barrier under them. Replacement scope:
- Remove and haul out the existing slab
- Excavate to depth and assess the condition of the drain tile while it is exposed
- Place and compact 4 to 6 inches of washed rock
- Lay a 10-mil vapor barrier
- Pour 4 inches of reinforced non-air mix
- Hard-trowel finish and sawcut control joints
Replacing a basement slab is the one moment interior drain tile can be added without tearing up a finished floor. If the existing drainage is marginal, do it now or expect to do it twice.
Combining scopes on one pour
A single mobilization covers one ready-mix delivery, one crew day, and one round of site prep. Bundling flatwork that is going to happen anyway usually saves 15 to 25 percent against running each piece as its own project:
- Garage floor plus approach apron plus service walk
- Pool deck plus equipment pad plus walkway to the house
- Shop slab plus outdoor pad plus gravel-to-concrete approach
- Patio plus steps plus path to the driveway
If more than one of these is on your list for the next two years, ask about pouring them together.
Service area
Flatwork across Dubuque and the Tri-State area: Dubuque, Asbury, Peosta, Epworth, Farley, Bellevue, Dyersville, and Cascade in Iowa; East Dubuque and Galena in Illinois; Platteville in Wisconsin. Dubuque, Jackson, Jo Daviess, and Grant counties.