The specification we quote to
By the evening of pour day, everything that determines whether your concrete outlives its warranty period or its mortgage is out of sight. This page puts it on the record instead, so you can compare any quote, ours included, against something written down.
The reference standard
Residential pavements here take AS 3727.1 as their reference standard. On the crossover section, the City of Monash's own specification and drawings outrank this page, as they should; that strip is built to what the council's inspector expects to see.
Ground first
Monash sits on clay that swells and shrinks with the seasons, and the suburbs' cracked original concrete is six decades of evidence for what happens when that is ignored. Our sequence starts below the slab: old surfaces and soft or organic material excavated out, and crushed rock brought in and compacted where the ground requires it, before a single metre of concrete is ordered.
Steel, placed to work
Reinforcing mesh goes into every pour, and it goes in on bar chairs so it sits mid-slab where it restrains cracking, not flat on the ground where it is decoration. Where vehicles will stand or turn, the mesh is upgraded. A vapour membrane goes under the slab where the site's conditions call for one.
Driveways
Residential driveways are poured in 25 MPa concrete at around the 100mm mark, which handles family cars for the life of the surface. Caravans, boats and anything truck-weight get the section and steel upgraded at quote time, deliberately, rather than being discovered by the slab later.
Outbuilding slabs
Thickness follows the building: 100mm with SL72 mesh under garden sheds, 125mm with SL82 under garages, workshops and studios, with thickened edges and rebates where the structure's drawings require them. Hold-down details come off the manufacturer's documentation. Dwelling slabs are not quoted through this site.
Paths
Foot traffic gets 75mm as the minimum, never less, stepping up to 100mm wherever a vehicle can cross, at gates, aprons and layback edges. Path falls are set to move water away from the house and along to somewhere harmless.
Joints
Concrete will crack; the trade's job is deciding where. Control joints are sawn early into fresh slabs on a layout that puts the movement in straight, intentional lines, and isolation joints keep new work structurally separate from footings, existing slabs and anything else that moves to its own rhythm.
Water
No slab we pour drains towards the building. Falls are taken off real levels at the measure, and where a block insists on running the wrong way, towards a garage under the house line for instance, a grated drain is formed into the pour and plumbed to stormwater. Crossover grades are set so a standard car enters without scraping, which on the Mount Waverley and Wheelers Hill slopes is genuine design work.
The crossover
Between boundary and road, the City of Monash's rules run the show: a vehicle crossing permit before construction, position clearances from corners, street furniture and street trees, an inspection of the formed-up crossing booked before any concrete arrives, and a follow-up inspection about a month after. Permit fees are the council's own and are confirmed with the quote.
Finish and cure
The surface leaves the trowel as ordered, broom, smooth, full depth colour or exposed stone, and then the clock takes over: foot traffic the next day, cars after seven days, heavy vehicles after 28, and sealer over exposed aggregate once the concrete has properly cured. We put these dates in writing at handover.
Use this page against every quote
A lower number nearly always lives in the invisible layers, thinner base, lighter mesh, less concrete. Ask every bidder for those three figures in writing and set them beside this page, the rate card and the calculator. If their spec matches ours and beats our price, take it with our blessing; it will not happen often.