Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog I’m Dale Denhart concrete professional for more than 25 years now here of the San Antonio Texas area. I produce this blog in mind for one reason and that is to answer common questions that are out there in the common consciousness of the buying public. One of the most often questions that I’m asked over the telephone by people is how much does it cost for stamped concrete.
This is a question that I avoid answering over the phone because of the intricacies that are related with quoting a price to a person and how people have a tendency to lock the idea of a number that you presented them into the actual quote itself. Answering the question is not something that I’m trying to avoid it’s just something that I’m trying to avoid giving bad ideas that leave people thinking one thing when it could be the other. Not quoting a price is not an attempt to circumvent the question but it’s more of an attempt to make the right quote for the person. Without seeing a property it’s very difficult to quote the exact price for stamped concrete.
Let’s talk about the reasons why. First of all let’s talk about regular slab concrete that would be something like a driveway or a patio just plain Jane concrete color nothing special other than a straight concrete slab maybe doesn’t even contain any curves but just a basic rectangle with a length and width. Of course quoting something like this is even difficult going sight unseen because it’s important to consider the following things that we will discuss such as fill raise of the land how much excavating needs to be done those are just a few things that are the most important aspects to consider.
When someone pushes for a price I will simply remind them that yes there is a price for concrete a price per yard that we are charged from the concrete company but that’s the raw product no different than a baker that has to buy flour for bread or a cake that they’re going to make that’s simply the ingredients needed but not the labor and not the true cost of the finished product. If you go by flour at the store the cost for a pound of flour is obviously much cheaper than just buying the finished cake itself. That analogy can be extrapolated accordingly when it comes to describing trying to find that exact cost for stamped concrete consider the analogy of the cake that I’m using. if you want a three-tiered wedding cake although you’re using flour and basically all the same ingredients the technical difficulty for doing a three-tiered wedding cake is something that’s much more time consuming. Time equals energy equals more money. The same thing can be said about stamped concrete.
Of course when you’re doing stamped concrete there are many things to consider such as how many yards of concrete that you will need but other things to consider besides The following things that we’ve discussed already things like how the land is laying do you need to raise the land do you need to lower the land does it need to be leveled in order to accomplish what you’re trying to do. With that you need to consider how much fill you need what is that sand, rock or other aggregate. Another thing to consider is that not all companies have access to the same style stamps.
What does that mean? When you choose a stamp design for your project you could be choosing a stamp design that that company does not currently own there are several different stamp designs basic brick,as well as many other different designs. Each one of these stamps are bought individually and the company either owns them or rents them from a company on it as needed basis.
These are very expensive and just like the old days when you went to the store that thing called the video store remember that? When you would go to the video store and look for your favorite movie and it would be checked out you might have to wait a few days in order for you to be able to watch that movie. I know this concept is totally lost to the generation that has been raised now on Netflix. But there’s a prime time for concrete here in Texas and most of that time where we see the bulk of our business is from February March April May June and July.
That means that we’re kind of in competition for those stamps and like landing airplanes they have to be organized sometimes they don’t always get returned sometimes they get return damaged and that’s why we’ve decided here to own as many of those stamps as possible. Again a very expensive process in owning those renting them is equally expensive. So if you’re doing something special which when you get into stamped concrete most of these are special they require a unique tool it’s around drum that looks like a large toilet paper roller that we use to roll across the concrete to apply the stamp. That’s why it’s somewhat prohibitive to give a real price on what does it cost for stamp concrete. Stamped concrete is a specialty item and like my father always used to say if you have to ask how much a Ferrari cost you probably can’t afford one.
I’m not saying that we’re charging prices like Ferraris but what I am saying is that in order to get to the price it’s important to know the things that you don’t know and the way that we find those out is by what happens next you calling us to get your free no hassle estimate and by us stopping out to look at your project.
We can often get a lot of information from photos and we appreciate it when our customers send us pictures of potential jobs that they would like to have quoted but it’s more important for us to stop by make that human contact and actually look at the potential projects so we can give you the best possible price. Don’t delay call us today for your no hassle free estimate or meet us up online and fill out a form it’s even easier and we can schedule through text messaging a time to stop by your house, or business to take care of your next project that you will be more than pleased you chose us to do.