Backyard remodeling and concrete in Selma, CA

The core of Selma is an old railroad townsite grid, and the houses near downtown and Lincoln Park show it. Deep lots, detached garages, narrow driveways poured long before anyone owned two vehicles, and patios that were added in the 1960s as small rectangles against the back of the house. Widening a driveway, extending a patio out to a usable size, and replacing walkways that have lifted along a fence line are the three things we are asked for most often on that side of town.

The postwar and 1980s tracts are a different picture. Those yards usually have a decent slab but nothing on it: no shade, no defined edge between patio and lawn, and often a pool from the same era whose deck has worn smooth and lost its slope. Resurfacing a sound deck or replacing a failed one, and adding a cover so the concrete is usable in July, turns that kind of yard around without touching the house.

On the newer east side subdivisions the lot arrives graded, with a small builder slab and bare dirt behind it. Those are the easiest projects to get right, because the layout, the drainage and any structures can all be planned together before a single form goes in. It is also the one moment when running gas, water and electrical out to a future kitchen or fire feature costs almost nothing, so we plan those runs even when the build is two years away.

Selma sits on flat valley floor, so a backyard almost never has usable natural fall. That makes slope something we build in rather than something we find. We shoot the grade, set the fall away from the house and the pool, and form to that number so the whole surface moves water the same direction. A quarter inch per foot across a wide patio does not look like much on paper, and it is the difference between a slab that dries in ten minutes and one that keeps a puddle for two days.

Reinforcement and base compaction come before any of that matters, and control joints get cut at the spacing the slab thickness calls for and at every re-entrant corner. Where the ground genuinely cannot take the water away, deck drains and channel drain are formed into the low line at the start, not cut into finished concrete later. Around a pool that usually means running the fall outward on every side so nothing drains back toward the coping.

Before we call a Selma job done we run water over the whole surface and look for anything standing. If a spot holds, we come back and put it right rather than leaving you to notice it in December. That part is not a warranty clause buried in paperwork, it is simply how the job finishes. Standing water on new concrete is the one thing a homeowner sees every single time it rains, so it is worth getting right the first week rather than the third winter.

Summer here runs past 105 degrees for weeks, so shade is the first thing that makes a Selma backyard usable. Attached patio covers, Alumawood systems and solid wood covers all work, and we wire them for fans, lighting and heaters while the structure is open. Pergolas suit a yard where you want filtered light rather than a full roof, and a freestanding cover on its own pad creates a shaded room away from the house on a deeper downtown lot.

After shade comes the reason to sit out there. A built-in barbecue island with a bar top keeps the cooking outdoors, a fire pit or outdoor fireplace with a seat wall around it makes the yard work from March through November, and lighting turns the whole thing into something you use after dark instead of something you look at. Artificial turf over a drained base stays green through the Selma summer without a sprinkler, which matters in a town where water use is watched closely and the heat is relentless.

Being surrounded by vineyards has a practical effect on concrete work, especially in late summer. Harvest and field work put a lot of fine dust in the air, and dust settling on a fresh surface at the wrong moment affects both the finish and anything sealed on top of it. We time finishing and sealing around that rather than pretending it is not happening, and on a windy harvest week we would rather move a pour by a day than hand you a surface with valley dust cured into it.

Below ground, much of this area sits over hardpan that stops water rather than letting it soak away, which is exactly why surface slope has to carry the load instead of the soil. Consolidated Irrigation District canals and laterals, fed from the Kings River, run through the farmland around Selma, Fowler and Kingsburg, so on any parcel backing onto one we plan the drainage so nothing we build pushes runoff toward a district easement. Mature trees on the older streets are the other thing working against flatwork here, and roots get dealt with rather than poured over.

For permits, work inside the city limits goes through the City of Selma. Addresses on unincorporated ground outside the limits go to Fresno County instead, with different setbacks and a separate review for attached structures. Flat concrete usually needs no permit, while covers, enclosures and outdoor kitchens with gas and power usually do. On a deeper downtown lot the setbacks and the detached garage can both affect where a structure is allowed to sit, so that gets confirmed early. We work out which counter applies and what it will approve before drawings are made, so nothing has to be redrawn later.

Send the form and we come out, often the same day or within 24 hours on weekdays, because Selma is a straight run down Highway 99 from our Clovis yard. We walk the yard with you, work out the layout on site rather than from a catalogue, and send back one clear written estimate. That conversation is deliberate: it lets you build the patio and cover this year and add the kitchen or the fire feature next year without anything being repriced from scratch.

The way we bill is the part customers write reviews about. If the finished job uses less square footage than the allowance in your estimate, the difference is credited back to you. Most single element pours are a one day job, and one 380 square foot project was finished in under nine hours. The debris is cleared before the crew leaves, every time. Across 29 Google reviews the rating is 5.0, and the family trade goes back to April 1980.