Home › Areas
Across Detroit and its three core counties
Winter and road salt are shared across the metro, but the soil, lot sizes and water tables change from county to county.
Narrow city lots with alley garages, postwar ranches on level clay, lakeside homes near a high water table and hilly subdivisions on glacial moraine each put concrete to work differently. Each county page below looks at how those conditions play out for the concrete around a house, and at the questions worth raising when a contractor comes to look.
Concrete in Wayne County: old lots, level clay, tight access
Wayne County holds the oldest housing in the metro, and much of it sits on the flattest ground. From city blocks near the Detroit River to postwar ranch streets in Livonia and Westland and newer subdivisions in Canton and Northville, concrete here faces the same slow-draining lake-plain clay and hard winters. What sets the county apart is the age and layout of the lots: narrow frontages, alley garages, driveways squeezed between houses, and concrete that has been patched, overlaid and replaced several times over the decades.
Oakland County concrete on hills, lakes and mixed soils
Oakland County is where the flat lake plain of Metro Detroit gives way to rolling hills and hundreds of inland lakes. A driveway in Royal Oak or Ferndale sits on the same dense clay as much of Wayne County, while one in Clarkston, White Lake or Oakland Township may climb a slope of sandy glacial soil to a house above a lake. That variety means the concrete decisions that matter most change as you move northwest across the county, even though the winters and the road salt stay the same.
Macomb County concrete from the lakeshore to the townships
Macomb County stretches from the dense postwar neighborhoods of Warren, Roseville and Eastpointe, past the canals and shoreline of Lake St. Clair, to fast-growing townships and open farmland in the north. Across most of it the ground is flat, clay-rich and slow to drain, and near the lake the water table can sit close to the surface. Those conditions shape nearly every concrete decision here, from how deep the base should be to where a patio can send its runoff.
In all three counties the same short list decides whether new concrete lasts: how firmly the ground was compacted, where the water goes, how the joints were planned, and how the slab was protected while it cured. Each county page then layers on its own specifics: tight access and old buried slabs in Wayne County, slopes and mixed soils in Oakland County, and shoreline groundwater in Macomb County.
Think of these pages as a description of a region rather than a strict boundary line on a map. Homeowners just past the county lines are welcome to send an address too. Whether a job there makes sense comes down to travel time, how a truck reaches the site and which local office signs off on the work.
Talk through your project
Start with the address, what you want poured or replaced, rough dimensions, and a few photos of the area and any existing concrete.