Concrete is the one thing you cannot redo cheaply
Cascade Concrete Works started the way most good concrete companies do: finishers who were tired of being sent to pour over a base nobody had compacted, on a schedule nobody could keep, for a price that only worked if corners got cut.
We build residential flatwork and foundations in Marysville and across Snohomish County. Driveways, patios, walkways, steps, garage and shop slabs, footings, stem walls and short retaining walls. That is the list. We are not roofers, we are not landscapers, and when a job needs a trade we do not do, we tell you instead of learning on your property.
The pitch is simple: a written scope you can compare against any other bid, base prep you can inspect before the pour, joints cut on time, and a crew that cleans up after itself.
How we work
We show the boring part
Photos of the compacted base, the rebar grid and the form grades go to you before the truck arrives. If something under your slab is wrong, that is the moment to catch it — not five winters later.
We quote what we will do
Thickness in inches, reinforcement type, base depth, finish, sealer, demo and haul-off — itemized. Vague bids are how homeowners end up comparing four numbers that describe four different jobs.
We say no
If an overlay will fail on your slab, if a wall needs an engineer, if your budget does not cover the base your soil requires — you hear it at the estimate. A job we should not have taken costs us more than the one we turn down.
We respect the site
Plywood on lawns, washout contained, sprinklers marked, gates closed, and no equipment parked on a neighbor’s grass. You should not be repairing landscaping after a concrete job.
We work to the weather
Pouring flatwork in a Pacific Northwest downpour ruins the surface. We watch the forecast, move dates when we have to, and explain why rather than pushing through to keep a calendar tidy.
We answer the phone
Calls returned the same day, next business morning at the latest. After the job too — a warranty you cannot reach is not a warranty.
Licensed, bonded, insured — and verifiable
In Washington, every contractor is required to be registered with the Department of Labor & Industries, carry a bond and carry liability insurance. That registration is public. You can look up any contractor’s license, see whether the bond is active and check for filed claims in about a minute on the L&I website.
We will hand you our license number with the estimate and we would encourage you to verify it — ours and everybody else’s you are bidding. The contractors who disappear mid-job are almost always the ones who were never registered to begin with.
We also carry workers’ compensation coverage for our crew, which is what keeps an injury on your property from becoming your problem.
What we would ask, if we were hiring a concrete contractor
- How many inches of compacted rock go under the slab, and what size rock?
- What thickness is the concrete, and what reinforcement — fiber, mesh or rebar on chairs?
- Where will the control joints be, and will they be saw-cut or tooled?
- Which direction does the finished surface drain, and where does that water end up?
- Is demolition, haul-off and disposal included in the price?
- What is the workmanship warranty, in writing, and what does it exclude?
- What is your L&I registration number?
A contractor who is comfortable answering all seven is probably worth hiring. One who gets annoyed at question two is telling you something useful.