Concrete Contractors in Oolitic, IN

Oolitic was founded to cut limestone, and as concrete contractors in Oolitic we bring the same respect for good material to every slab. The Bedford Quarries Company platted the town on March 23, 1896. Some of the largest limestone quarries in the world sit just north of town, among them the Empire Hole, about half a mile up the road, which gave up 35,017,500 pounds of limestone block in 1931 for the Empire State Building.

A compact town with older homes

Oolitic is about two-thirds of a square mile. In 2020 the census found 1,137 people and 560 homes there, roughly one in ten of them vacant, and a median age of 41.8. With a housing stock that old and that settled, most concrete work is fixing what has worn out rather than new construction:

• Front steps that have cracked, crumbled or tipped
• Walks that heaved and now catch a toe
• Driveways and parking strips that broke into pieces
• Garage floors that sank or flaked

Safer steps and walks for every age

One Oolitic resident in five (20.6%) was 65 or older in 2020, so step and walk safety matters. Good steps have risers of equal height and treads deep enough for a whole foot. A walk should be flat side to side with no lips at the joints. We broom-finish steps for grip and can form a top landing wide enough to open a storm door without backing down a step. For a handrail, sleeves can be cast into the concrete so a railing installer has solid anchor points.

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Driveways on small lots

Compact lots often have short drives or a parking pad off the street. A short slab still needs the full treatment: firm base, correct thickness, joints and a pitch so water runs away from the house. When we replace a drive here, we pay extra attention to where it meets the street and the neighbors' property, since there is little room for error on a narrow lot.

Repair or replace?

We start by finding out why the concrete failed. Common causes:

• Water getting underneath: downspouts and low spots that soften the soil
• No air entrainment: older mixes that flake in freeze-thaw
• Thin slabs on dirt: older work with little or no stone base
• Tree roots: lifting walks from below

If the cause is still there, new concrete will fail the same way, so we fix the cause first.

A name taken from the stone

The town was first platted as Limestone in 1888, but the post office rejected the name because Indiana already had one. A local doctor suggested Oolitic instead, after oolitic limestone, the fine-grained stone made of tiny rounded grains that the quarries here cut. A limestone statue of the comic-strip boxer Joe Palooka has stood in town since it was moved from Bedford in 1984. On streets this close-set, we decide before pour day where the mixer will stand, how concrete will reach the forms and where broken-out pieces will wait for haul-off, and we protect neighboring lawns and walks with plywood.

Garage and shed slabs

A garage floor that has dropped at the door or split into pieces is a frequent problem in older towns. We break it out, rebuild the base and pour a new reinforced floor with a slight fall toward the door. Shed pads get a level, reinforced slab cut to the building's size. Call (812) 286-8782 to set up a visit in Oolitic.