Trusted Concrete Contractor in Durango CO - Work That Holds Through Mountain Winters

Durango sits at 6,512 feet in the San Juan Mountains, and that elevation creates concrete challenges that simply do not apply in lower-elevation cities. The city averages roughly 75 inches of snow per year, and the temperature swings above and below freezing dozens of times each winter. Every one of those freeze-thaw cycles is an opportunity for water to penetrate concrete, expand as it freezes, and widen whatever crack or pore it found its way into. Concrete that was poured with the wrong mix design for this elevation, or without a base properly compacted to account for the rocky mountain soil, will show the damage every spring. What looked like a solid pour the first fall can have surface spalling and cracks running through it within two or three winters.

Durango also has a housing stock that ranges from Victorian-era homes near the historic downtown, with their original wood framing and older foundations, to newer construction in developing neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. Sloped lots are common throughout, particularly in the hillside neighborhoods west of downtown and along the Animas River. That terrain introduces drainage complexity that a flat-lot contractor may not account for. Summer monsoon storms can drop heavy rain in a short time, and if a driveway or patio is not pitched correctly, that water ends up against the house foundation rather than draining away from it. Getting the slope and drainage right from the start is not optional on a Durango lot.

Durango is a city of about 19,000 people in La Plata County, Colorado, sitting at 6,512 feet in the Animas River valley where the mountains meet the high desert plateau. The city was founded in 1880 as a railroad town, and that history shows in the Victorian-era homes and commercial buildings that line the historic downtown. Neighborhoods near Third Avenue and Main Avenue have some of the oldest residential construction in the region, with homes dating back to the 1880s and 1890s. Newer residential development has pushed north and east into neighborhoods like Three Springs and Escalante, where larger homes on more open lots have been built over the past two decades. Fort Lewis College, on the mesa above downtown, draws around 3,000 students and anchors the neighborhoods west of the Animas River.

The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, operating since 1882, is the most recognized landmark in the city and a reference point that every Durango resident knows. The Animas River trail runs through the city center and past many of the established residential neighborhoods. Durango has a mix of owner-occupied homes and rental properties, with the rental density higher near the college. We work on properties across all of these areas and also serve Cedar Hill, NM, about 45 miles south down the Animas River valley in San Juan County.