Patio Paving in Pittsburgh, PA

Create the perfect foundation for your outdoor living space with a durable and beautiful concrete patio. RMK Services is the trusted expert in custom concrete patio paving for homeowners throughout Pittsburgh, PA.

The Top Patio Paving in Pittsburgh, PA

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RMK Services OFFERS Patio Paving IN Pittsburgh’s Top Neighborhoods

RMK Services provides professional Patio Paving for homeowners and businesses throughout the greater Pittsburgh area. Below is a full list of nearby neighborhoods and townships we serve, all within our 60-mile service radius. If your property is located in one of these areas, we’re ready to help you with Patio Paving:

Our Patio Paving Service

Our process bOur patio paving service begins with a creative design consultation in your own backyard. We listen to your ideas for how you want to use the space, whether for outdoor dining, lounging, or hosting gatherings. Our experts help you determine the optimal size, shape, and placement of the patio to best suit your landscape and lifestyle. We will walk you through the exciting decorative possibilities, including a wide array of stamped concrete patterns and color options. A well designed patio should be both a functional and beautiful addition to your home. We provide a detailed plan and a transparent estimate to bring your vision to life.

Proper site preparation is the crucial first step to ensure your patio remains stable and crack free for years. Our process starts with carefully excavating the designated patio area. We remove all the grass, topsoil, and any other organic matter to get down to a solid soil subgrade. We then meticulously grade the area, creating a gentle slope that directs water away from your home’s foundation. This positive drainage is a critical and often overlooked detail that protects your home from water intrusion. Our thorough preparation sets the stage for a long lasting, high quality installation.

After excavation, we install a robust sub-base of compacted crushed stone. This aggregate base is the unseen foundation of your patio and is essential for its longevity, especially in Pittsburgh’s climate. This layer provides a stable platform for the concrete, helps to distribute loads evenly, and provides a crucial drainage layer beneath the slab. We install the stone in layers, or lifts, and use mechanical compaction equipment to ensure the base is solid and dense. A well compacted sub-base is the best defense against the patio sinking or settling over time.

With the base prepared, we build strong, precise formwork and install steel reinforcement. Our team sets up wooden forms around the perimeter of the patio’s designed shape. These forms are securely staked to create crisp, clean edges and to ensure the concrete is poured to the correct, uniform thickness. Inside the formwork, we place a grid of steel rebar or wire mesh. This steel reinforcement provides vital tensile strength, helping to control cracking and keep the slab structurally sound as it handles temperature changes and the weight of furniture and people.

The pouring and finishing of the concrete is where the skill of our craftsmen truly shines. We use a high quality exterior concrete mix that is air entrained to resist damage from our local freeze thaw cycles. The concrete is carefully placed and spread throughout the forms. Our finishers then expertly smooth the surface and apply the desired finish. For a standard patio, a non slip broom finish is a safe and practical choice. For a decorative look, we can apply colors and then use stamps to create the beautiful texture of stone or brick.

We offer a full range of decorative options to make your patio a unique work of art. Stamped concrete is our most popular decorative choice, allowing you to achieve the high end look of natural slate, flagstone, or cobblestone. We can combine these patterns with integral colors or topical stains to create a truly custom appearance that complements your home. Another beautiful option is an exposed aggregate finish, which provides a natural, pebbled texture that is both durable and slip resistant. We can help you choose the perfect decorative finish to create your dream outdoor space.

The final steps in our process are proper curing and sealing. After the patio is finished, we apply a curing compound that helps the concrete cure slowly and reach its maximum strength. Once the concrete is fully cured, we recommend applying a protective sealer. This sealer enhances the appearance of decorative finishes and protects the patio from stains, water absorption, and weathering. After all work is complete, our team performs a thorough cleanup, backfills against the new patio, and conducts a final walkthrough with you to ensure your complete satisfaction.

All Concrete Services By RMK in Pittsburgh, PA


RMK Services offers Patio Paving in Pittsburgh, but we also offer many other residential concrete services for homeowners across Pittsburgh. From new installations to full tear-outs and replacements, we handle everything with precision and care. Below is a complete list of concrete services available alongside Patio Paving:

Why Homeowners Trust RMK Services in Pittsburgh, PA

At RMK Services, we focus on delivering honest, high-quality concrete work backed by real experience and dependable service. From the first estimate to the final pour, our team shows up, communicates clearly, and gets the job done right without sales pressure or surprises. We take pride in treating every property like it’s our own and standing behind everything we do.

  • Licensed & Insured in Pennsylvania (PA License #203908)
  • Over 10 Years of Construction Experience
  • Free In-Person Estimates With Honest, Fair Pricing
  • No Upsells or Games; Just Solid, Reliable Work
  • Family-Owned and Operated in Pittsburgh
  • Serving a 60-Mile Radius Around the City
Years in Business
5-Star Reviews
Satisfied Clients
Jobs Completed

A Homeowner’s Guide On Patio Paving in Pittsburgh

Common Patio Paving Questions

A concrete patio is a fantastic way to expand your home’s living space into the outdoors. It provides a clean, durable surface for everything from quiet morning coffee to large family barbecues. Homeowners in Pittsburgh planning a new patio often have questions about the design and construction process. Here are some of the most common questions answered.

For a typical residential concrete patio that will support standard patio furniture, a grill, and foot traffic, the industry standard thickness is four inches. A four inch thick slab of concrete, when installed on a properly compacted stone base and reinforced with steel, is more than strong enough to handle all the normal stresses of a residential patio. This thickness provides excellent durability and longevity without being excessively expensive. It is the proven standard for high quality residential flatwork across the country.

It is crucial that this four inch thickness is consistent across the entire patio. Thin spots in the slab will be weak points that are highly susceptible to cracking. A professional contractor will carefully grade the sub-base to be perfectly flat and will use forms of the correct height to ensure a uniform slab thickness. In some very specific cases, a thicker slab might be warranted. For example, if you plan to place an extremely heavy structure on the patio, like a large brick pizza oven or a massive stone fireplace, the footing area beneath that structure would need to be thickened to support the concentrated load.

Conversely, a slab that is thinner than four inches is not recommended for a patio in our climate. A thinner slab will not have the mass or strength to resist the stresses of ground movement from freezing and thawing, and it will be much more likely to crack and fail prematurely. Investing in the proper four inch thickness is a critical part of ensuring your new patio is a long term, durable investment in your home.

Yes, absolutely. A concrete patio must be properly sloped to ensure good drainage. A perfectly flat, level patio is a recipe for disaster. Any rainwater or melting snow that lands on the patio would have nowhere to go. This would result in large puddles of standing water on the surface, which would make the patio unusable after a storm and could create a breeding ground for mosquitoes. More importantly, this standing water could pool against your house’s foundation, leading to serious and expensive water damage and basement leaks over time.

A professional concrete contractor will design and install your patio with a specific, gentle slope that directs all water away from your home’s foundation. The standard and recommended slope for a concrete patio is a minimum of one quarter inch of fall for every one foot of length. For example, a patio that extends 12 feet out from your house should be three inches lower at the far end than it is at the side next to the foundation.

This slope is subtle enough that you will not notice it when you are walking or placing furniture on the patio, but it is more than enough to use gravity to effectively drain all the water off the surface and into your yard. Creating this precise slope is a key part of the grading and forming process. It is a critical detail that protects both your new patio and your home, and it is a hallmark of a professional installation.

This is one of the most common debates for homeowners designing a new patio. Both stamped concrete and pavers can create beautiful and durable outdoor spaces, but they have key differences. The primary advantage of a stamped concrete patio is that it is a single, solid, monolithic slab. This means there are no joints or cracks between individual units. The biggest benefit of this is that you will never have to worry about weeds growing up through your patio or pesky ants building nests in the sand joints, which can be a constant maintenance battle with pavers.

Aesthetically, stamped concrete can often achieve a more realistic and seamless imitation of natural materials, especially large patterns like flagstone or slate. Pavers, by their nature, will always have a pattern of joints. In terms of maintenance, a stamped concrete patio needs to be cleaned and resealed every few years to keep it looking its best. Pavers do not need sealing, but they often require the joints to be refilled with polymeric sand every few years to prevent weed growth and keep them locked in place.

In terms of repairs, pavers have an advantage. If a single paver is damaged or stained, it can be easily lifted out and replaced. Repairing a crack or a damaged spot in a stamped concrete patio is more complex and can be difficult to blend perfectly. However, a properly installed stamped concrete patio with control joints and a solid base is very resistant to cracking. Ultimately, the choice often comes down to a homeowner’s preference for the seamless look and low maintenance of stamped concrete versus the traditional, jointed look of pavers.

Keeping a concrete patio clean is a relatively simple task. For routine cleaning, you should regularly sweep the patio with a push broom or use a leaf blower. This removes leaves, dirt, and other loose debris that can otherwise get ground into the surface by foot traffic or start to decompose and cause stains. Rinsing the patio with a garden hose once in a while is also a good way to wash away light dirt and pollen and keep the surface looking fresh.

For a deeper cleaning to remove more stubborn dirt or mildew, you can use a pressure washer. It is important to use a fan tip nozzle and keep it moving to avoid creating lines or damaging the surface, especially on colored or sealed concrete. For greasy stains from food or grilling, you may need to use a concrete degreaser. You can scrub the spot with a stiff brush and the cleaning solution, then rinse thoroughly. Always test a cleaner in an inconspicuous spot first.

The best way to keep your patio clean and easy to maintain is to have it professionally sealed. A high quality sealer creates a protective barrier on the surface that prevents dirt, liquids, and other contaminants from soaking in. This means most spills can be simply wiped or rinsed away without leaving a permanent stain. A sealed patio is much easier to keep clean and will maintain its beautiful appearance for many years.

Yes, you can absolutely build a beautiful and functional concrete patio on a sloped yard. In fact, this is a very common project in the hilly terrain of the Pittsburgh area. A concrete patio is an excellent way to create a level, usable outdoor living space on a property that would otherwise be an unusable hillside. The construction process is more complex than on a flat lot, but it is entirely feasible with proper design and engineering.

On a moderately sloped yard, the process involves a technique called “cut and fill.” We excavate into the high side of the slope (the cut) and use that soil to build up the low side of the slope (the fill). The fill material must be placed in compacted layers to create a stable base. The patio is then formed and poured on this newly created level area. For steeper slopes, this method may not be sufficient on its own.

On a steep slope, the downhill side of the patio will need to be supported by a structural foundation or a retaining wall. This often involves pouring a concrete footing that extends down to stable soil and then building a short, reinforced concrete wall (often called a frost wall) to support the edge of the patio slab. In many cases, the retaining wall and the patio can be designed and poured as one integrated structure. This creates a solid, permanent solution that turns a difficult slope into a stunning, multi level outdoor living area.

The cost of a new concrete patio can vary significantly, as each project is custom. The biggest factor that determines the cost is the size of the patio. The price is often calculated on a per square foot basis, so a larger patio will naturally cost more than a smaller one because it requires more materials and labor. The complexity of the patio’s shape will also influence the cost. A simple square or rectangular patio will be more affordable to form and pour than a complex, multi curved freeform design.

The type of finish you choose has a major impact on the final price. A standard, plain gray concrete patio with a broom finish will be the most economical option. Decorative concrete finishes will add to the cost. A stamped and colored concrete patio, for example, can cost significantly more per square foot than a basic patio because of the extra materials (colors, release agents, sealer) and the high level of skill and artistry required for the installation. Other finishes, like exposed aggregate or a stained finish, will also have their own associated costs.

Site access and the amount of preparation needed can also affect the price. If the backyard is difficult to access with equipment, or if extensive excavation and grading are required for a sloped yard, the labor costs will be higher. The only way to get a precise cost for your project is to get a detailed quote from a professional contractor. RMK Services provides free, on site consultations where we can discuss your vision and provide you with a firm, itemized estimate.

Patience is key after your new concrete patio is poured. Although the concrete will be hard to the touch within a few hours, it is still very “green” and needs time to cure and gain strength. Walking on the new patio too soon can leave permanent footprints or scuff marks in the delicate surface, especially on a decorative finish. As a general rule, you should stay off the new patio completely for at least 24 to 48 hours.

After a couple of days, the patio is typically strong enough to handle light foot traffic. However, it is still susceptible to damage from sharp objects or heavy, concentrated loads. You should wait at least one full week (seven days) before you start placing heavy patio furniture, large planters, or a heavy grill onto the new surface. Placing heavy items on the patio too early can scratch, chip, or even crack the still curing concrete.

The full curing process, where the concrete reaches its maximum design strength, actually takes about 28 days. While you can use the patio long before then, it is a good idea to be a bit more careful with it during that first month. Your contractor from RMK Services will give you specific instructions based on the weather conditions during the pour. We will let you know exactly when it is safe to walk on and when you can start furnishing and enjoying your new outdoor living space.

Yes, it is highly recommended that you seal your concrete patio. While concrete is a very durable material on its own, applying a high quality sealer provides a crucial layer of protection that will keep your patio looking great and extend its life. A sealer works by creating a protective barrier on the surface of the concrete. This barrier prevents water, dirt, and other liquids from being absorbed into the concrete’s porous surface. This is the key to preventing stains from things like spilled drinks, grease from a grill, or decomposing leaves.

For decorative concrete patios, sealing is absolutely essential. A good sealer, typically an acrylic based one for stamped concrete, will dramatically enhance the colors of the stain or integral pigments. It often provides a slight sheen, from satin to gloss, that brings out the depth and richness of the colors and the detail of the stamped texture. The sealer also protects the color from fading due to exposure to the sun’s UV rays. It is the final step that makes the decorative work “pop” and protects its beauty.

In our Pittsburgh climate, a sealer also provides critical protection against weather damage. By preventing water from soaking into the concrete, it helps to guard against the damaging effects of the freeze thaw cycle. The sealer should be reapplied every two to three years as part of a regular maintenance routine. This simple and affordable maintenance step is the best thing you can do to protect your investment and ensure your patio remains a beautiful and inviting space for many years.

Get The Best Patio Paving Near You

For a free in-person estimate on your project, book a call-back using our 24/7 self-service system or call us directly at (352) 978-5567.