Concreters in Burnside for driveways, alfrescos, pool surrounds and paths

Burnside, in short

Burnside is about six kilometres east of the city where the plains meet the hills, named for Peter Anderson's farm beside the creek in 1839 and the centre of the City of Burnside ever since. Hazelwood Park and the Burnside Swimming Centre sit in the middle of it, Burnside Village is the shopping centre on Portrush Road, and Waterfall Gully runs up into the ranges from its eastern edge toward the First Falls and the Mount Lofty summit walk. Toorak Gardens, Tusmore and Rose Park lie to the west, Beaumont and Glen Osmond to the south, and Stonyfell and Wattle Park up the slope to the east.

It is one of Adelaide's most established and most protected suburbs, with heritage streets, huge significant trees and a council that guards both. We come in along Greenhill Road or Glynburn Road most weeks.

The houses, and what they need

Burnside's houses are big and old and mostly stone: 1900s villas and 1920s and 30s sandstone homes with slate roofs on the flatter streets, 1950s and 60s homes climbing the slope toward Beaumont and Stonyfell, and, increasingly, full rebuilds and major renovations that open a serious house up to a serious backyard. Blocks are big, driveways are long and climb, and there is almost always a very large gum tree involved.

So the Burnside job list is long sloping driveways replaced with grip and a drain; entry paths with wide steps; alfrescos and courtyards behind the renovations, more often than not in honed concrete; pool surrounds on the terraced backyards; and studio, garage and pool house slabs cut into the slope.

The ground under Burnside

The foothills are clay over rock, and the clay is reactive: it swells through a wet winter and shrinks through a dry summer, and on a slope it moves downhill with it. Then there are the roots. Burnside's river red gums and blue gums have roots the size of a leg running under half the driveways in the suburb, and they're the reason most of those driveways cracked and lifted. Every Burnside slab we pour gets a compacted rubble base, mesh sitting mid-slab on chairs, and saw-cut joints at tight centres so the movement shows up as a straight line rather than a crack; we cut back roots where the council allows, install root barriers where they'll help, and tell you honestly when a tree will win.

Stormwater on a slope is the other thing. A Burnside driveway sends every downpour toward the garage, so a fall built into the formwork and a strip drain across the garage door connected to stormwater are standard here, and a pool surround on a terrace gets its own drainage before we pour.

The council, and getting to you

Burnside is in the City of Burnside, which protects its significant and regulated trees closely: work near the roots of a big gum can need approval, and an arborist's say on how close a slab can go. The strip between your boundary and the road is council land too, so a new or widened crossover needs a permit, has to be poured to their specification, and is inspected. We prepare and lodge the application, pour to the spec, book the inspection and work within the tree rules, all inside the quote, and we'll tell you at the measure if a tree changes what's possible.

We're in the eastern suburbs most weeks, so a measure and quote in Burnside is usually within a few days of your call, and a job is usually booked one to three weeks out depending on the weather and the pour schedule.