We pour concrete patios, courtyards and outdoor living areas across Hamilton, from a small paved area off the back door through to a full entertaining space with a pool surround. Plain broom, exposed aggregate, stamped and coloured finishes are all laid by our own crew rather than subcontracted out.
Every patio starts with a free site visit where we check the fall away from the house, the floor level at each door, and where water sits once the ground stops taking it. Around a pool the surface has to stay walkable when wet, so a broom or lightly textured finish beats a smooth trowel. A written quote follows that visit and names the finish you chose. Tell us which doors it has to meet before we set the boxing.
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Patio Finishes
The finish decides how a patio looks and how it feels underfoot. These are the six we are asked for most around Hamilton homes.
A plain broom finish is the right call for most Hamilton back yards, and the one we lay most often. A light broom texture gives grip when the surface is wet, which matters on a patio that catches morning shade and stays damp until midday. We pour at 100 mm of 20 MPa concrete over compacted basecourse with mesh through it, and cut control joints so the panels suit the shape of the area.
Say at the site visit if a spa is going on it, because a spa full of water changes the slab.
The exposed aggregate patios we lay earn the extra where you want a surface that hides leaf stain, pollen and the marks a barbecue leaves behind. A surface retarder holds the top paste soft overnight and we wash it back the next morning to expose the stone.
The slab underneath is the same 100 mm in 20 MPa as any patio. Stone size changes how the surface feels underfoot, so walk on a sample barefoot before choosing. Sealing keeps the colour up, so budget for it from the start.
We stamp patios in slate, cobble and timber patterns, so you get the look without laying pavers and grouting every joint. Colour hardener goes into the surface, a release agent stops the mats sticking, and the pattern is pressed while the concrete is still green.
It presses into a standard 100 mm slab, so the finish costs nothing in strength, and the only breaks in it are the control joints, cut along a pattern line where the layout allows. Stamped is smoother than exposed aggregate once sealed, so we work a grip additive into the sealer.
We pour coloured patios where plain grey fights the house. Oxide batched through the mix colours the concrete all the way down, so a chip or a scuff shows the same colour underneath, and it runs $120 to $170 per square metre against $100 to $150 for plain.
Colour hardener worked into the surface gives a stronger tone for less cost and sits in the top few millimetres. Colour dries lighter than the sample, so we order the whole patio in one pour where the area allows.
The pool surrounds we pour have one job the rest of a patio does not, which is staying safe underfoot while it is soaking. We keep the texture open, finish to the classes in NZS 3114, and fall the surface away from the pool shell so splash-out drains off the coping.
Exposed aggregate suits this well. Tell us where the pump and the pipework run before we set levels, because cutting a finished slab to reach a fitting costs real money.
We extend and replace existing patios, and it is a levels job before it is a concrete job. We dowel into the existing slab so the two move together, matching the 100 mm thickness and the fall so water does not pond along the join.
Where an old surface has stepped at the joints or cracked across the middle, the base under it has usually failed and a new topping will crack in the same place. We say so at the visit when that is what we find.
Patio Build Method
STEP ONE
We check the floor level at every door the patio meets, the fall away from the house, and where water sits after heavy rain. We look at truck and pump access and work out how much of the pour has to be barrowed. That visit is free, and pricing waits for it.
STEP TWO
You see finishes and stone options in daylight, because colour reads differently under cloud. The quote lands in writing within a few days and states the slab thickness, the concrete grade, the mesh and the joint layout for your patio.
STEP THREE
Dig out to depth, cart away, basecourse compacted in layers no thicker than 150 mm. Boxing set to the falls, mesh on chairs, then place, screed, float and finish. Joints get cut the same day or the next morning depending on temperature. Foot traffic after a day or two, furniture at seven days.
Patios and courtyards run $100 to $150 per square metre for a plain finish. Coloured concrete sits at $120 to $170, exposed aggregate $130 to $200+, and stamped $120 to $170. The ranges are a starting point; the quote is set on site. We price your patio after the site visit.
What shifts the price, in order of impact.
Free Site Visit
A concreter walks the area, checks the fall away from the house, the door thresholds and the access for a truck, then confirms what your patio needs. No charge and no obligation.
Two quotes for the same courtyard often price different work. A lower rate is usually supply and place, meaning concrete, labour and finish, with excavation, cartage and drainage sitting outside the number. Ask each quote how deep the basecourse goes, how many compacted layers it is built in, and whether spoil cartage is in or out.
For the record, our patio slabs are 100 mm of 20 MPa concrete over compacted basecourse, with 665 mesh to AS/NZS 4671 sitting on chairs so it lands inside the slab and not on the plastic. Joints are cut into panels sized to the slab and set out before the pour, not decided afterwards.
Patio Falls and Drainage
A patio changes where water goes on a section, and that is worth settling before the boxing is set, not after. We set falls away from the house and away from any door threshold, and we work out where the water ends up before the slab goes down.
Level is the other constraint. A patio has to sit below the damp course and still fall away from the wall, and on a tight site that means stepping the area rather than raising it. We check your address against the Hamilton City Council District Plan before quoting and tell you what your site needs.
Texture does the work on an outdoor surface. A broom finish drawn across the fall gives grip in the direction people walk. Exposed aggregate carries grip in the stone itself. Stamped patterns are the smoothest of the three once sealed, so we add a grip additive to the sealer on stamped patios and always on a pool surround.Most patios get quoted alongside a driveway or a path, because the site setup is already paid for. Ask about both at the visit, since we take on residential and commercial concreting in Hamilton instead of one product line.
Reinforcing mesh to AS/NZS 4671. Basecourse compacted in layers no thicker than 150 mm. The ground and water-table picture is drawn from Hamilton City Council geotechnical reporting, mapped at catchment scale and not a substitute for site assessment.
Hamilton Ground Conditions
A patio carries far less load than a driveway, so the ground under it shows up as movement and ponding well before it shows as cracking. Four things decide it.
Hamilton is not flat under the surface. Low mounds and shallow swales run through it, and a patio sits on one or the other. A patio on a mound and a patio in a swale need different drainage on the same street.
Poorly drained silt loams lying in the swales. They hold water under a slab after rain, which is what turns a patio green through winter and lifts the edges over a few years.
Free-draining sandy loam on the higher mounds. These sites take a standard base and most of them need no subsoil drainage under a patio.
Council records peat over close to a quarter of the city, mostly through the western suburbs, and it turns up as buried layers on sites that look ordinary. In the western suburbs groundwater sits inside the top 3 metres, and at Rotokauri North it is as little as 0.1. On that ground the falls and the drainage get designed before the boxing goes up.
A property line on a map tells you none of this. We dig a test hole where the patio is going and set the base depth off what comes out of it.
Concrete Patios, Hamilton
Courtyards, entertaining areas, pool surrounds and patio extensions, in plain, coloured, exposed aggregate and stamped finishes. Licensed, insured and laying concrete across Hamilton for over ten years. Tell us what you are planning.
Concrete Patio Questions
Plain finish patios run $100 to $150 per square metre. Coloured sits at $120 to $170, exposed aggregate $130 to $200+ and stamped $120 to $170. We quote after a site visit, across Hamilton and the wider Waikato.
Level and fall. The patio has to sit below the damp course and still run water away from the wall, and on a tight site that means stepping the area rather than building it up against the house. We take levels off the door threshold and the existing ground at the site visit and set the design around what we find.
100 mm of 20 MPa concrete over compacted basecourse, with 665 mesh to AS/NZS 4671 on chairs. Foot traffic is the only load most Hamilton patios carry. A spa changes that completely, so tell us at the site visit if one is going on, because it needs a thicker slab under it.
Foot traffic once it has had a day or two, furniture at seven days. Joints get cut the same day as the pour, or the next morning in cold weather. Concrete keeps gaining strength for weeks after the surface looks finished, so heavy loads wait.
Exposed aggregate, in most cases. The stone gives grip while the surface is soaking and it hides splash marks between cleans. On a stamped pool surround we work a grip additive into the sealer. We also fall the surface away from the pool shell so splash-out drains off the coping.
We do. Patio jobs take us to Cambridge, Tamahere and Matamata most months, and the travel is in the quote before you see it. Ground varies across the region, so the base under a patio on Ohaupo peat is not the base we would build in Rototuna.
