Driveway Replacement in Georgetown, TX
When a slab is genuinely beyond repair, what a full tear out and repour actually buys, and why the cheapest bid usually saved money in the part you cannot see.
By the Georgetown Concrete Guide editorial team · Updated July 17, 2026
A driveway earns replacement when the damage is structural, not cosmetic. Hairline surface lines and a single lifted joint are repairs. A slab that has cracked into rocking pieces, sunk unevenly at the approach, or spalled down to the aggregate across most of its surface is telling you the base or the concrete itself has failed, and patching failed concrete only buys a season.
Age matters less than what the slab is doing. A twenty year old driveway sitting flat and tight can outlast a ten year old one poured on bad base. Before you commit replacement money, rule out a lift: a sound but sunken slab often comes back up with foam or mudjacking for a fraction of the cost of tearing it out.
What a full replacement involves
Replacement is a rebuild from the ground up, and the parts you cannot see decide how long it lasts. A crew tears out the old slab and hauls it off, then rebuilds the subgrade, compacting the soil and adding a few inches of base rock so the new concrete rides on something stable. On the Blackland clay east and south of I-35 that prep matters most, because the clay swells and shrinks under the slab through every wet and dry cycle.
Then comes the concrete. Standard residential flatwork is four inches thick; where a truck, RV, or trailer parks, five to six inches is the honest spec. Reinforcement is welded wire mesh or rebar on a grid, and in expansive clay rebar is the norm because it holds a cracked slab together instead of letting the pieces drift apart. Control joints get tooled or saw cut to place the inevitable cracks where you want them, roughly every eight to twelve feet on a four inch slab.
What drives the price here
Published industry cost data for the Georgetown area puts a broom finish driveway at roughly $6 to $12 per square foot installed, so a typical 600 to 800 square foot two car drive lands between $5,000 and $12,000. Six things move you inside that band.
| Cost driver | Cheaper end | Pricier end |
|---|---|---|
| Tear out and haul off | Thin slab, easy access | Thick, rebar heavy, tight lot |
| Thickness | Four inches, cars only | Six inches for heavy vehicles |
| Reinforcement | Wire mesh | Rebar on a grid |
| Base work | Existing grade reused | Full recompaction and rock |
| Finish | Standard broom | Exposed aggregate or stamped |
| Access | Open run to the street | Gates, slopes, or rock to cut |
Reading the bid
The cheapest quote usually saved money underground, where you will not find out for a year. Ask every bidder to write down four numbers: slab thickness, reinforcement type and spacing, base depth, and concrete strength in PSI. A bid that lists a finish and a price but stays vague about the base is quoting a weaker job than the one sitting next to it.
Then ask the questions the paperwork does not answer on its own: who actually pours it, the company crew or a day sub, how they plan the joint layout, and how they will cure the slab in summer heat. Our guide to why concrete cracks here explains what you are actually paying the base and rebar to control, and leveling vs replacement is worth reading before you assume tear out is the only answer.
Questions homeowners ask
Concrete gains most of its strength in the first week, not the first day. Most crews ask you to keep foot traffic off for a day, wait three to four days for cars, and hold heavy trucks or trailers off for a full week. In a hot Georgetown summer a good crew adjusts that schedule to protect the cure.
Yes, eventually, because the slab shrinks as it cures and the clay under it moves with the seasons. Good work does not prevent cracks, it controls them with jointing and reinforcement so they stay tight and land where the joints are. The driveway to worry about is the one poured with no control joints at all.
Only when the slab underneath is structurally sound. Resurfacing bonds a thin new layer over old concrete, so if your driveway is cracked through, heaving, or crumbling below the surface, an overlay fails on the same lines within a year or two. Replacement costs more upfront and is the honest fix for a slab that has actually failed.
Concrete can be poured year round in Central Texas, but the extremes need care. A hundred degree afternoon pulls water out of the surface and invites shrinkage cracking, so summer pours get scheduled at dawn and cured deliberately. Hard freezes are the other end of it. Spring and fall give a crew the easiest conditions for a clean, well cured slab.
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