Concrete Patios in Fort Worth, TX

A standard broom or smooth-finish concrete patio runs $6 to $12 per square foot installed, while stamped or decorative concrete runs $8 to $28 per square foot, commonly landing between $12 and $18. A typical 20-by-20 stamped patio costs $3,200 to $7,600 total, with plain broom-finish flatwork costing less per square foot at the same size. Price depends on thickness, finish, color options, drainage grading needed, and site access for the ready-mix truck. We quote every patio free and in writing after an on-site look, not off a phone description.

Light foot traffic is generally safe about 24 to 48 hours after the pour, though furniture, grills, and heavier use should wait closer to the 7-day mark while the slab keeps gaining strength. Full design strength is reached around 28 days, which is also the earliest point a sealer should go on a stamped or colored finish. Rushing furniture onto a patio before it's ready risks denting a surface that hasn't finished curing. We'll give you a specific date based on your pour and the weather during the cure window.

Broom finish is a plain, slip-resistant surface created by dragging a broom across the concrete while it's still workable, and it's the most budget-friendly option at $6 to $12 per square foot. Stamped concrete presses a pattern — flagstone, brick, or cobblestone are common choices — into colored concrete before it sets, running $8 to $28 per square foot for a look that mimics pricier materials. Exposed-aggregate finishes wash away the top layer of cement paste to reveal the stone within the mix, giving extra texture and grip that's popular around pool decks. Which one fits best comes down to budget, slip-resistance needs, and how formal you want the space to look.

A patio poured flat or sloped toward the house lets water pool against the foundation instead of running away from it, and on Tarrant County's expansive clay that standing water accelerates the shrink-swell movement that cracks slabs and stresses foundations. The crews we coordinate with build a slight fall into the forms before any concrete is placed so water sheds away from the house on its own. Skipping this step is invisible on the day the patio is poured and expensive the first time it rains hard. Correct slope is planned during the site walk, not added as an afterthought.

North Fort Worth's high-plasticity 'black gumbo' clay, weathered from the Eagle Ford and Woodbine formations, swells when wet and shrinks through the region's dry summers, moving several inches seasonally under whatever's poured on top of it. A patio without a compacted base, proper reinforcement, and correctly spaced control joints has nothing to resist that movement, so it heaves and cracks in random spots instead of planned lines. About 250,000 new homes are built on expansive soils across the U.S. each year, and roughly 10 percent see damage significant enough to matter structurally. Proper subgrade prep and jointing don't stop the clay from moving — they give the slab room to move with it.

Yes, with the right isolation joint between the new patio and the existing foundation so the two elements can move independently instead of pushing against each other as the clay subgrade shifts. The patio also gets graded to slope away from the foundation rather than toward it, which matters as much for the house as it does for the patio itself. We evaluate the exact clearance and grading needed for your specific foundation during the site visit. Pouring too close without an isolation joint is a common mistake that transmits movement straight into the foundation wall.

Residential patios are typically poured at a lighter structural section than a driveway since they only carry foot traffic and furniture rather than vehicle loads, though the exact thickness depends on the finish chosen and whether the patio will support anything heavy like a hot tub or an outdoor kitchen structure. A patio built for a hot tub or a heavy grill setup needs a thicker, more heavily reinforced section than one meant for a table and chairs. We specify thickness and reinforcement based on how you'll actually use the space, not a single default number. This gets confirmed during the free on-site quote.

It depends on the city and sometimes the patio's size — Haltom City, North Richland Hills, and Watauga each handle building and paving permits through their own city departments rather than Tarrant County. A small detached slab may not need the same permit as one tied into an addition or a covered structure. We confirm the requirement for your address before scheduling a crew, so it's never a surprise mid-project. Unincorporated areas around these cities fall under Tarrant County jurisdiction instead.

It depends on whether the damage is cosmetic or structural — surface-level scaling, minor cracking, or discoloration can often be resurfaced with an overlay system rather than a full tear-out, which is covered in more depth on our [concrete repair & resurfacing](/concrete-repair) page. But if the slab is heaving, has cracks running through its full thickness, or is sitting on a subgrade that's already failed from clay movement, resurfacing just covers up a problem that keeps getting worse underneath. We evaluate which situation applies during a site visit rather than guessing from a photo. Full removal and a fresh pour is sometimes the more cost-effective long-term fix even though it costs more upfront.

Spring and fall generally give the most predictable cure, since concrete placed below 50°F gains strength more slowly and hot, dry, windy summer days require extra curing care to prevent surface cracking before the mix fully sets. Summer pours are still routine here — they're just scheduled around the cooler parts of the day and a forecast without rain right after the pour. We track the weather window for your specific pour date rather than locking in a fixed date that fights the forecast. Calls come in 24 hours a day so scheduling has room to wait for the right window.

Yes — sealing protects the integral color and pattern on a stamped patio, though the concrete has to fully cure for about 28 days before the first sealer coat goes on. Decorative color is often only warranted against premature fading for about a year, and staying on top of resealing is usually what keeps that warranty valid. Reapplication generally falls somewhere between every one and a few years depending on sun exposure and traffic. A plain broom-finish patio doesn't need sealing structurally, though it's optional for staining protection.