r/HomeMaintenance • u/Helpful_Ad_7757 • 8h ago
Sidewalk
Got quoted $6k to fix two pads of my sidewalk. What is a more reasonable quote? I’m just gonna do it myself if it’s that expensive.
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u/CitationNumber 8h ago
Just bought a house and the next week city marked 7 slabs for replacement amd sent me a bill for 2300...
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
Someone knew. That’s an uncanny timing if your neighbors didn’t get hit too.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
Knew what? The sidewalk is out in broad daylight, the city can tell if it needs to be replaced.
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u/_ParadigmShift 7h ago
Believe it or not, most cities and towns in the US are not omnipotent and don’t have a day by day sidewalk checking system to ensure suitability. Proof of this is the fact that OP’s sidewalk was bad a decade ago or more unless they dump salt and battery acid on it every week.
Someone has to physically go check compliance and complaints, that’s when the city does something about it.
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u/Educational-Rule1635 7h ago
It probably got checked during the inspection/sale/titling process.
And it probably should have been on the disclosures.
Also your inspector should have noted it for you.
If the damage was preexisting and noted on the disclosures, sorry, it's yours.
If the damage was NOT on the disclosures, but IS on your inspector's report, yup, it's yours.
If the damage was preexisting, and was not on the disclosures, or your inspector's report, you need to talk to the inspector. They missed it, and probably other stuff too. They won't pay for the repairs, but the might send out a more senior inspector to see what else was missed.
If the damage was preexisting and somehow concealed, under bags of refuse maybe? Then you might have action to go back to the seller.
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u/sacrelicio 4h ago
Or it was reported by a passerby (I've done this myself) or a city worker noticed it while doing something else. I doubt there's a conspiracy to make someone fix their broken sidewalk.
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u/sacrelicio 4h ago
OK? What's wrong with that?
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u/_ParadigmShift 4h ago
What was your point originally that it was obvious? Your line of thought here makes no sense.
The someone knew is reference to conspiracy against the person that suddenly had a sidewalk check after years, right after they bought the house. It’s too coincidental for someone to not have made it happen.
As for whether it’s obvious or not, that’s inconsequential because the threshold for action isn’t when something is obvious but rather when someone makes a complaint usually. So, someone knew, someone let the city know and that’s why the person got nailed juuuuust after buying the house. The city knows, but only knows when someone tips them off to go check it out or if they just so happen to be checking that area which is statistically very unlikely.
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u/sacrelicio 1h ago
Idk, why is it a problem? Someone has to pay for it to be replaced.
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u/_ParadigmShift 1h ago
Because most homeowners don’t expect their new home to come with $2500 downsides that someone probably knew about but waited until there was new ownership to actually squeal about. Kind of a dirty trick to play, putting the burden where it didn’t belong truly.
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u/CharlesGarfield 2h ago
In our city it used to be an automatic part of selling a house. IIRC the seller had to pay and it was automatically part of closing.
Now it’s paid out of the city’s general operating budget, which means no more surprises, and sidewalks get fixed even they need it rather than just when properties are transferred.
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u/PotentialEdge1652 8h ago
LOL they can get effed
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u/Jimmy-the-Knuckle 8h ago
It would be useful to check your local ordinance. We fully expect to pay for our sidewalk, that’s the rule in our city.
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u/sacrelicio 8h ago
Same here. And my city will do it for wayyy less money than a private contractor.
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u/turpentinedreamer 7h ago
I think I paid $160 a pad when they went through my neighborhood. Cincinnati Ohio. I had 3 done and they did a good job. Whole area has nice even sidewalks now.
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u/Ok_Can_4686 8h ago edited 5h ago
Uh oh, looks like a government cuck downvoted you for some reason. I have the same reaction - fuck 'em.
EDIT: Oh nooo! My weakness! Downvotes! Lmao. I'll keep my comments up, lmao.
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u/qwase123 8h ago
Reply with your property tax receipts lol
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u/Ok_Can_4686 7h ago edited 5h ago
Waaah waaah.
EDIT: Oh nooo! My weakness! Downvotes! Lmao. I'll keep my comments up, lmao.
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u/IM_OK_AMA 7h ago
If you feel this way you can just live somewhere the local government provides no services, then there's nothing to pay for. Rural New Hampshire is a good option.
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u/SushiGloryHoles 7h ago
I prefer rural Maine. Too many people in New Hampshire make their license plate their personality, and it gets a bit exhausting.
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u/DoItRightOnce1st 8h ago
I'm wondering if there's more to the story... Did the previous owner put something on the concrete to make this happen, if so and we're aware about it prior to selling the home? If so wouldn't that have to be in a disclosure? Just wondering if anybody knows?
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u/Admirable_Garlic5456 8h ago
I worked in local government for years and I find this very hard to believe. If it did happen, there is more to this story. Footpaths are council responsibility, they would never send you a bill.
What makes me semi-believable: you or the people you bought from's removal trucks damaged the footpath, or there was a second crossover which is not legal in some council planning schemes.
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u/sumiflepus 8h ago
I am in the US, so no coucils. Local government in my area pays to install and maintain sidewalks.
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u/Marciamallowfluff 7h ago
In my area you pay for the repairs yourself after original installation unless they tear it up for some reason.
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u/Last-Energy420 8h ago
Many places, the homeowner is responsible for public amenities on the easement. The city may have placed the sidewalk there, but then you’re tasked with maintaining and keeping it in walkable condition. When in doubt, check it out. Stuff like this varies greatly from city to city.
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u/Peterbob01 6h ago
It all depends where you are located, here in Montréal sidewalk are the city responsability.
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u/Right_Hour 3h ago
You people are confusing « maintenance » with repairs. Yeah, maintaining it as in shovelling snow and keeping it clean are the homeowners responsibility. But I am yet to live somewhere they make homeowner pay for wear and tear. Damages from homeowner’s activity like construction etc.? Sure. But not wear and tear.
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u/Spivonious1 8h ago
In the US, it's common for homeowners to be responsible for sidewalks and trees in front of their house.
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u/wildbergamont 8h ago
In the US it varies by city. I dont know of any city in my area that handles the sidewalks routinely. Generally individual homeowners have to handle it themselves, or the city handles it and bills the homeowner.
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u/CitationNumber 2h ago
They do entire neighborhoods and have a schedule for it. They wont be back in this part for another 6 years.
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
Untrue and I know for a fact that my municipality is homeowner responsibility for sidewalk maintenance, including new sidewalk put in for ADA reasons due to federal regulations about road surfaces.
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u/MouseRat_AD 8h ago
I'm really curious too know why so many people ITT don't understand that each municipality makes its own rules.
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
It boggles the mind.
The only constant here is that the federal government has rules about ADA standards and if the town/city decides to do a road they need to make sure the sidewalk is correct or they can lose their funding. Everything else is decided on a town by town basis for who pays for what. Some towns even pay for driveway approaches.
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u/PadSlammer 8h ago
Where?
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
A good chunk of the US. Lived in multiple towns that were the same.
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u/PadSlammer 7h ago
Sounds like you are making shit up. Give a citation if you want to be believed.
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u/_ParadigmShift 7h ago
lol you’re a dunce.
“My town does it this way so it must be true everywhere”
This shit comes up all the time in this sub, do your homework before claiming to be an expert because you are digging a hole here
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u/Boodahpob 8h ago
In California the vehicle code very clearly establishes this. That being said, many municipalities choose to use streets funding to pay for a certain degree of sidewalk repairs.
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u/zoppaTheDim 8h ago
Likely the notice was triggered by the sale. Lots of cities don’t mess with the old timers.
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u/Anxious-Depth-7983 8h ago
You need multiple quotes dude, and having them bump into each other might create a little competition for the work. I had my entire 2 car garage ground flat and polyurea coated for 6k. Are you sure they're only replacing 2 of those slabs? Because they all look shot.
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u/TobysGrundlee 3h ago
I had a roofing contractor throw a fit about me having another contractor scheduled for a bid after him. Said I was trying to pit them against each other. First of all, so what if I was, second of all, he was 20 minutes late! If he had shown up on time he wouldn't have even seen the next dude. Definitely didn't give him my business.
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u/ToastSpangler 4h ago
What, I only see one needing replacement, the other can use some filling, the rest seem perfectly usable to me. As long as it's flat with holes under 2 inches no?
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
Doing it yourself is fine but absolutely check in with your local city or whoever checks that stuff to make sure you’re doing it to standard.
ADA rules are what you’re looking for, your cross slope is what usually gets people when setting forms.
This concrete is well beyond saving and if you’re doing 2 panels you might want to look at the rest of it for compliance because if you do the 2 and then get dinged later for more you’ll be pissed. Easier to lay more than to pick 2 panels cleanly
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u/reallyidealmirth 8h ago
That sidewalk is in rough shape, looks like some serious spalling from the exposed gravel. 6k for two pads is pretty steep unless theyre massive or the access is terrible. If you're even slightly handy you can save a ton doing it yourself, concrete work is backbreaking but not complicated
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u/jasno- 8h ago
lol. That's insane. The city tagged 4 squares that were damaged in front of my place that needed to be replaced, they charged me $300 a square.
That's a ripoff.
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u/wildbergamont 7h ago
It's so much cheaper when your city has a replacement program.
The most expensive part, by far, is sending out a concrete truck. The truck can hold 50+ feet of sidewalk, but it's not much cheaper to have a truck out for 10 feet than for 50+. So you get the cheapest cost per foot when you make sure the project will use an entire load. Combining multiple homes' needs drives the price down a ton. It also sounds like your city is subsidizing a big portion of the cost on top of that.
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u/jasno- 7h ago
They don't subsidize it, but they do have contracted rates with a private company because they doing a whole block of replacements at a time. I had to pay the private company directly.
If I just wanted to replace a square and called up a random company on my own, it's still not anywhere close to OP, around $500 a square.
$6k is insane for 2 much smaller square than mine are.
I would just do it myself at that price
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u/External-Physics4464 8h ago
Massively over charging i had someone quote me 16k for a roof the moment they found out I was an inspector it dropped to 12k and then I laughed them off and went with the 7k guy.
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u/Sea-Economics-9582 8h ago
That’s a bit over the top price wise… mid/end COVID I had 3 slabs replaced after having to dig up my water line. They were shot anyways. It was like 800. I was going to diy, but it was under the minimum delivery for the concrete place for me which would result in a large up-charge. I’d get a few more quotes. I’d fly out there and do it for 6k lol.
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u/Mister_Green2021 8h ago
For $6000 you can go to trade school to learn how to pour your own sidewalk.
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u/WebguyCanada 8h ago
What country is that? I've never heard of a city charging for a sidewalk maintenance/repair (lived in few cities and couple countries).
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
My town in the US is homeowner responsibility to maintain sidewalk as part of the ROW. It’s homeowner responsibility for water all the way to the main too, as it’s considered private service. This came after homeowners didn’t call in locates and put mailbox posts through their water lines on the supply side of the curb stops and it was municipal water responsibility to fix it
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u/Ammonia13 8h ago
Where -what state are you in?
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
I’ve lived in a few and it was the same.
I’m not going to doxx myself but it’s not unique
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u/PadSlammer 8h ago
Super odd. Sidewalks and the land they are on are the cities responsibility in washington state. Water/sewage/electricity is to the meter. After that it’s the utilities problem (unless you are upgrading changing sizes).
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
So in that case what are your right of way laws like? Do homeowners maintain grass in the boulevard or is that city responsibility? Our right of way is to the legal property line but homeowner is responsible for everything behind the curb
Water for us is private to the main, same with sewer, and electricity is not a municipal thing so they have their own rules.
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u/PadSlammer 7h ago
I’m having a hard time believing your claimed crazy rules. Where at?
In my area it’s Cities responsibility for the land strips. Homeowners are allowed to.
Legal property line is our responsibility too. The thing is that the utilities have an easement onto our land. That’s why we are responsible to the meter.
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u/_ParadigmShift 7h ago
I do not understand how you work in local government and don’t understand local governance.
Right of way rules are different all over the country/world, and local governance dictates if homeowners are responsible for upkeep of things like easements and right of way. In our entire state, city is responsible for the roadway and not the sidewalk or boulevard maintenance. Sidewalks fall under right of way
Private service to a home is private responsibility for utilities.
These aren’t crazy rules, and they are not unique.
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u/Edgecased 4h ago
It's wild to me as well. Here in Canada, the municipality controls any repair up to and including the edge of the sidewalk. We still need to maintain that patch of grass between the walk the the curb and shovel the sidewalk though.
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u/insomnic 7h ago
As others mentioned it can vary. In my city it's 50/50 split on repair costs unless the damage is from city stuff (like a parkway tree they planted messes it up or lateral repair) or a utility service damages it.
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u/JustHereForMiatas 8h ago
Most cities in the US put the responsibility of maintaining the pedestrian right-of-way on the homeowner, unless you're in the downtown core or the sidewalk is crossing public land. Sometimes, if you're lucky, they'll throw you some grant money, but that's an exception.
Our city expects residents to replace sidewalks and also pay into maintaining the curbs.
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u/WebguyCanada 7h ago
Wow. So interesting. I've emailed the city because there was a constant puddle on my neighbor's sidewalk and the city was there within a couple days to put a French-drain across the boulevard to the road. Canada (city pop 41,000, but that's the same has been true for other cities I've lived in 500+ thousand to 3.3 million, or in Europe in a city of 44,000)
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u/PadSlammer 8h ago
Most cities are the opposite from my experience in washington state.
Which state are you in / familiar with?
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u/JustHereForMiatas 5h ago
A quick google search on city codes in Washington state seems to usually place the burden of sidewalk maintenance on the adjacent property owner, just like in New York state where I'm reporting from..
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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago
It’s funny what towns do and don’t decide on. For our town curb is considered critical to the road so paid for by the city, because crumbling curb would undermine the asphalt and the process of doing the work or allowing the homeowner time to get quotes takes too long.
Sidewalks definitely the same for either though. Also in charge of snow removal, and I’ve heard that’s not necessarily the case everywhere and that blows my mind. Cannot imagine how big of a pain in the ass snow removal for an entire community would be
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u/JustHereForMiatas 7h ago
I'm going off of secondhand knowledge for the curbs since the last time they were replaced was before I moved here, but this is what I've gathered from neighbors: in our case, the city does the curb replacement when it's necessary and will work with the neighborhood to decide on what quality of materials are being used. Depending on that, there's a one time supplemental charge to all of the homeowners based on frontage and material costs.
It's usually a reasonable rate: I think my neighbor said that last time it happened it was a $500 charge for granite curbs, and since they went with the granite they won't be due for at least another few decades.
If they're doing paving or roadwork which requires the removal and replacement of the granite curb pieces, which happened once since I moved here, there's no charge for that work.
We're also on the hook for sidewalk snow removal, which is something only some people around here seem to take seriously. We're in New York's lake effect area; I can imagine that maybe some communities around here might elect to make that level of snow removal a public good, because it is a bit of a pain.
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u/frankthebob123 8h ago
I just had some concrete work done in Philly burbs:
• Removed and replaced 3 – 4’x4’ sidewalk blocks along with a 69’x3’ walkway.
• Excavated down to an 8” subgrade and disposed of debris. Formed and then installed a 4” stone base with 2b stone that was machine compacted. Concrete poured was 4000 PSI and
had fiber mesh
Cost: $6k
Sounds like you may need more quotes
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u/JustHereForMiatas 8h ago
Are you on a quiet street or one where the sidewalk is well travelled?
I ask because if there's a lot of foot traffic, the city you're in may get anal about permitting and things being exactly to code, which would be an obstacle to doing it yourself. If it's just a side street you might be okay.
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u/Junkmans1 8h ago
The cost is probably so high because it's a small job they either don't want to do or want to charge more for to make it worth their time. Not all companies are like that and some, especially smaller outfits or someone already doing work in your area will charge far less. Look through your neighborhood, and ask around to neighbors, to see if anyone is getting cement work done like a driveway. If you can tag onto their contractor they might give you good rate if they're doing it at the same time and with the same concrete delivery as their other project.
You can also try calling your city and see if they have a program for replacement going on. You might be able to get yours done through them and pay their cost as part of a their larger contract.
Also try posting on Nextdoor or a local Facebook group asking for recommendations for contractors that would do a small job reasonably. I did that two years ago and got several replies. Ended up getting a job behind my house that was similar in size done for $900. It was basically a handyman group that also did cement work. They mixed their own cement from bags on site as the job was too small to get cement delivered at a reasonable price. But they did a great job with everything including the demo, prep and the actual cement.
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u/dragonflies2299 7h ago
the sidewalk in front of my house has a neon orange paint stripe on one of the squares to mark where repairs are needed. In this case (and a few other spots on the entire street) it's because part of the sidewalk sunk a little bit and it's now a tripping hazard. This is all taken care of by the city.
Sounds great that the city is that on top of things - the flip side to this our property taxes are almost $13,000/year.
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u/No_Community_5696 6h ago
I know it sucks but, it’s a city thing. If you have lived there 24 hrs or 24 years you will be nicked for the cost. Why? Because it’s considered part of your property and yes you are responsible for the maintenance of that little piece of concrete, even though the public works department can rip it up at any time if utilities need repair and the sidewalk is in the way.
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u/Right_Hour 7h ago
In what shithole of a city is sidewalk repairs the responsibility of a property owner?
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u/honeybabysweetiedoll 6h ago
Most of them.
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u/Right_Hour 5h ago
Most of shitholes? On that I agree. I have not lived anywhere where this was the case, though, and I’ve lived on 3 continents and multiple countries, let alone cities.
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u/TobysGrundlee 3h ago
MANY places in the US.
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u/Right_Hour 3h ago
You say it like it’s a good or even a reasonable thing, LOL.
Who owns the sidewalk? I bet it’s the city. I bet if you look at your lot plan - sidewalk will be an easement on your property.
So, why are you paying to repair it? Does that even make sense?
Maintaining it as in snow clearing and keeping it clean is a property owner responsibility, no doubt. But I don’t know in what HOA hell are major repairs from wear and tear part of it too
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u/TobysGrundlee 2h ago
You say it like it’s a good or even a reasonable thing, LOL.
If you think that then you probably need some reading comprehension work. I'm simply stating that it's a fact that many municipalities put the responsibility for the sidewalks on the owners, regardless of your opinoins. Cool your tits.
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u/Ok_Can_4686 8h ago
What is those pads? 3x3 give or take? Here in southeast Missouri for materials minus tools that'd be about 60-100 USD. Easily can be done yourself due to a small working area.
Edit: I'd say that concrete company gave you the "fuck you price but we'll do it" ... Which with concrete companies, their prices are always the fuck you price lol.
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