Concrete Contractors in Paonia, CO

Paonia is the upper end of the North Fork Valley, and concrete contractors working in Paonia plan for more snow and colder nights than anywhere on the Grand Valley floor. The statutory town sits at 5,676 feet on the North Fork of the Gunnison River, about 9 miles up Highway 133 from Hotchkiss, with Mount Lamborn rising to 11,396 feet to the southeast. It was incorporated in 1902 and counted 1,447 residents in 2020. Orchards, vineyards and older homes on small town lots make up most of the place, and each of those has its own concrete needs.

Far more snow than the valley

Wikipedia's climate figures for Paonia (from records kept between 1930 and 1957) show about 14 inches of precipitation and roughly 53 inches of snow a year, with an average January low near 14 degrees and an average July high near 89. Compare that with about 17.6 inches of snow in Grand Junction. More snow means more meltwater on driveways and walks, more refreezing at night, and more shoveling and plowing. For Paonia flatwork we focus on:

• Air-entrained concrete on every exterior pour, with no water added at the truck
• A firm broom texture for traction on packed snow
• Slope that sheds meltwater to the side, so it does not pond and refreeze in the middle of a walk
• No ice-melt salt the first winter, and sand for traction after that whenever you can

Named for a flower, settled in 1880

The town site was settled in 1880 by Samuel Wade and William Clark. Wade brought peony roots to Colorado in 1881 and suggested the Latin name Paeonia; the post office dropped a vowel and the town became Paonia. Settlement that early means some houses in town are well over a century old. Old concrete steps, porches and front walks here often sit on little or no base, and many have settled or pulled away from the house. Rebuilding them on compacted gravel, with even risers and a textured finish, is some of the most useful work we do in older towns.

Get a Free Estimate

Orchards, vineyards and work slabs

Paonia's orchards grow peaches, apples, cherries, pears and plums, and Wikipedia lists five wineries in the area, described as among the highest in North America. Farm and winery properties need practical concrete:

Packing and processing floors that are flat, smooth and easy to wash down, sloped to a drain.

Equipment pads for tractors, sprayers and bin trailers, thickened and reinforced.

Crush pads at wineries, poured to drain wash water and sealed against fruit acids and cleaning.

Truck aprons at the road and at barn doors, where loaded vehicles turn.

These slabs carry heavier loads than a home driveway, so we size thickness and steel to the heaviest thing that will roll across them.

Irrigated ground in the North Fork

The Colorado Geological Survey names the North Fork of the Gunnison basin as one of the places where early fruit growers saw newly irrigated land sink, in places by as much as four feet, enough to reverse the flow of irrigation canals. Orchards and gardens are still watered heavily all summer. That history is a good reason to treat the base under every slab seriously here: strip organic soil, compact gravel in thin lifts, keep sprinklers and drip lines off slab edges, and send downspouts past the concrete.

An older population, practical requests

Paonia's 2020 median age was 49.1, and 28.1 percent of residents were 65 or older. That shapes a lot of the work: a wider, level walk from the driveway to the door, a ramp in place of two or three steps, a handrail-ready landing, or a patio poured flush with the back door threshold so there is no step down. Small jobs like these are worth doing right, since a single heaved panel or a crumbling step edge is a fall risk all winter.

Scheduling with Hotchkiss

Paonia is the far end of a long trip from the Grand Valley, up Highway 92 and Highway 133. We plan pours here around delivery time, use set-retarding admixture on warm days and blankets on cold nights, and try to pair Paonia jobs with work in Hotchkiss so one trip covers both. If your driveway work meets a town street or the state highway, we check with the Town of Paonia or the agency that controls that road before we schedule.