If These Floors Could Talk: Sidewalk Edition

Hello Darling,

It seemed like more than half our block was being forced to jump into the sidewalk repairs this year, and while they all went with the same crew, we shopped pricing and reviews. And we were glad we did.

In the Spring of 2021, we were notified that our sidewalk was flagged as required to be repaired by the city. Coming from Maryland, the idea that we are responsible for the cost and repairs of the public sidewalk was a new, and hard to swallow pill.

Thankfully, our city’s lead engineer is a peach to work with and made the process easy for us.

We got in touch with four different companies, one after the next they recommended each other for the job. Finally, on one of the recommendations we landed on a new company that was up and coming with a crew of guys who had been in the business for over twenty years. It sounded promising, as they were recommended by the top recommended company on our list….you can see the pattern we were trying to go for here- who had the best reputation.

We told the owner, Steve, of Kraftsman Quality Construction (of New Oxford, PA) what the other crew was quoting us and he cut the rate by $1,000 and threw in the extra extension to our steps for $500.

While we anxiously waited for work to begin, we started to get reviews back from our neighbors regarding the other crew. Cracked concrete, crumbling curbs. All within a week after work being completed.

Breaking Ground

Work started a month later after agreeing to a start date after Memorial Day. Overall, the job was supposed to take a week to complete.

They came in with hand tools and removed the start of the walkway in no time. We were shocked at how quickly they worked.

It was at this point that my husband and I felt like we had made the right decision going with this company. In stark comparison, the other company came in with large machinery (that further damaged other neighboring sidewalks that were not being repaired), and took days to complete something that took our crew a few hours to complete over two days between rain showers.

Rainy Mondays

The rain was no joke and delayed our project even further by another two weeks. At this point, we had a torn up sidewalk and no ending in sight because of dear old mother nature.

My husband and I had to go buy safety cones to properly mark off the zone as the delays prolonged the job. Thankfully, Lowes isn’t far and they had an abundance of cones. We used these.

The cones worked great and the crew finally made it back to start filling.

Fresh Concrete

The new sidewalk

Shapes

The attention to detail was more than we anticipated.

The final result completely beat out our expectations. The detailing Steve and his crew added with the shaping of the sidewalk leading up to the house was a design element he thought of to add character back into our walkway. He took one look at our colonial and our sidewalk and just knew we wanted something that showed character. The grass has since grown back in to complement the shape that was dug out and molded.

The other huge plus was the fact that they added the solo square for the water main access. This allows for future water main repairs or work that may have to take place that can avoid completely ripping up the entire sidewalk. We highly recommend this feature to anyone looking at sidewalk repairs to save a fortune in future work, because you just never know!

Overall, their work was seamless and looks flawless to this day after being finished back in June.

Until next time,

M.E.