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New Driveway Installation in Pittsburgh
Most of Pittsburgh’s older streets were laid out when one car per household counted as ambitious. It shows. Whole blocks in Brookline, Bloomfield and the South Hills still have homes with no driveway at all — just a curb spot you fight your neighbors for, or a gravel strip that turns to soup every March.
Putting in a driveway where there’s never been one is a different animal than swapping out a tired slab. There’s a curb cut to permit, a slope to solve, clay to build over, and rainwater that needs somewhere to go besides your basement wall.
That’s the work this page covers. Bare ground to finished slab — permit filed, base engineered, drainage figured out before the first form goes down.
Who This Page Is For
This isn’t the page for tearing out a cracked slab and replacing it. This is the page for building something where nothing is there yet.
Most of the homeowners who call us fall into one of six situations:
No driveway at all.
You’ve been parking on the street for years and you’re done with it.
Gravel or dirt.
It washes out every spring and tracks into the garage.
New construction.
The house is finished, the yard is raw, and the driveway is the last piece.
A parking pad.
Small footprint, tight lot, usually in the city.
Widening.
One car fits. Two don’t.
A second access point.
Corner lots, side entries, detached garages set back from the road.
Already have an old slab that needs to come out? That’s a different scope — head over to our driveway replacement page instead.
Can Your Lot Actually Take a New Driveway?
Before anyone talks about concrete, somebody needs to look at the dirt. On a Pittsburgh lot that usually comes down to five things.
Slope.
Where the driveway meets the sidewalk, the grade can’t run steeper than 10 percent. Hillside properties in Mt. Lebanon or Ross Township often need the approach cut and rebuilt to hit that number.
Where the water goes.
The slab has to pitch away from the house — roughly a quarter inch per foot. Get that wrong and you’ve built a funnel pointed at your basement.
Setbacks and property lines.
Shared drives, easements, and corner-lot sight lines all shape what’s allowed and where.
Utilities.
Nothing gets excavated until PA One Call has been through and the gas, water, and electric lines are marked.
Subgrade.
Clay, fill, old debris, or a soft spot from a buried stump changes the build before a single form goes down.
The Curb Cut Permit — Sorted Before Anyone Digs
Here’s the part most contractors won’t bring up until it’s a problem. A brand new driveway means a brand new curb cut, and in the City of Pittsburgh that requires a permit from the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure.
The application runs through OneStopPGH and it isn’t a formality. It wants a site plan, photographs of the existing sidewalk, curb and roadway, and details on how the new access point meets the street. If the driveway surface is gravel, a concrete apron at the curb is required, not optional.
Skip it and the city can fine you and make you tear the work out. We file the paperwork, handle the back-and-forth, and schedule the pour around the approval — not the other way around. Outside city limits, the rules shift by municipality. Cranberry Township, Moon Township, and Bethel Park each run their own process, and we’ve worked through all of them.
What Goes Under the Slab
Two bids on the same driveway can land thousands apart, and almost every time the difference is buried where you’ll never see it. Concrete is the cheap part. The base is where a driveway is won or lost.
We excavate to depth, haul the spoil off site, and proof-roll the subgrade to find soft spots before they find us. Anything that pumps or flexes gets dug out and replaced. On clay-heavy lots — which is most of the South Hills — geotextile fabric goes down to keep the stone from migrating into the subsoil over the years.
Then comes the stone: 2A limestone placed in lifts and compacted with a plate compactor, not dumped and raked flat. Reinforcement sits on chairs in the middle of the slab, where rebar or welded wire mesh actually does something, instead of lying on the ground doing nothing. We pour an air-entrained mix built for freeze-thaw, then saw-cut control joints on schedule so the slab cracks where we tell it to, not where it feels like it.
Hillside Lots and Clay Soil
Western Pennsylvania sits on expansive clay. It swells when it’s wet, shrinks when it dries, and the ground under your slab is never quite holding still. That constant movement is what causes differential settlement — one section drops, another doesn’t, and a crack opens between them.
Add a hillside and you’ve got sheet flow coming downhill straight at the new driveway. On those lots the drainage plan matters as much as the concrete. Depending on the site, that can mean a trench drain across the apron, a French drain along the uphill edge, a regraded swale, or downspouts tied in and carried past the slab.
Where the cut is deep enough to leave an unstable bank, we build a retaining wall into the design rather than hoping the soil holds. It’s cheaper to engineer it now than to rebuild the edge in three years.
From First Visit to First Drive-On
1. Site assessment.
We walk the lot, shoot grades, check drainage and talk through where the driveway should actually sit.
2. Written scope.
Dimensions, thickness, base depth, reinforcement, jointing and drainage — itemized before you commit.
3. Permit filing.
We submit the curb cut application and track it through approval.
4. Utility locate.
PA One Call marks the lines. No exceptions, no shortcuts.
5. Excavate and build the base.
Dig, haul, proof-roll, fabric, stone, compact.
6. Form, pour, finish, cure.
Forms set, concrete placed, screeded, floated and broom finished for traction, then cut and cured.
Foot traffic is usually fine after a day or two. Vehicles wait about a week — concrete keeps gaining strength long after it stops looking wet.
The Best Time of Year to Pour in Pittsburgh
Late spring through early fall is the easy window in Allegheny County. Moderate temperatures, predictable curing, no drama.
That said, shoulder-season work happens all the time and it’s fine when it’s handled right — adjusted mix, insulated blankets, and a close eye on overnight lows. What we won’t do is pour into a hard freeze and hope. Midsummer has its own trap: a hot, dry, breezy afternoon pulls water out of the surface fast, so those pours get scheduled early and cured aggressively.
One thing worth writing on the calendar — go easy the first winter. Deicing salt on green concrete is the fastest way to cause surface scaling. Shovel it, skip the salt, and let the slab get a season under it before sealing with a penetrating sealer.
What's Included — And What We Won't Do
Every new driveway installation includes:
- A written scope before any work starts
- Curb cut permit filing and municipal coordination
- PA One Call utility locate
- Excavation, spoil haul-away, and proof-rolled subgrade
- Compacted stone base placed in lifts
- Reinforcement set on chairs, mid-slab
- A jointing plan with saw-cut control joints
- Drainage checked and corrected, not ignored
- Full site cleanup
What we won't do:
- Pour over topsoil or grass
- Thin out the stone base to sharpen a number
- Lay reinforcement on the dirt
- Leave joints uncut and let the slab crack randomly
- Start a curb cut without an approved permit
Where We Work
South Hills
Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park, Upper St. Clair, Baldwin, Peters Township, Brookline
North Hills
Ross Township, McCandless, Cranberry Township, Wexford, Shaler, Sewickley
West
Moon Township, Robinson Township, Coraopolis
East
Monroeville, Penn Hills, North Huntingdon, Hempfield, Squirrel Hill
Plus the city neighborhoods in between, and most of Allegheny County. Not sure if you’re in range? Ask — we’ll tell you straight.
New Driveway Installation FAQs
Do I need a permit for a new driveway in Pittsburgh?
Yes. A new access point requires a curb cut permit through the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure, submitted via OneStopPGH. We handle the filing as part of the job.
Can you install a driveway where there isn't one now?
That’s most of what this page covers. Grass, dirt, or gravel — we excavate, build the base, handle the curb cut, and pour a proper slab.
How steep can a new driveway be?
Where it approaches the sidewalk, the grade needs to stay at or under 10 percent. Steeper lots usually get the approach recut so the transition works.
Can a gravel driveway be converted to concrete?
Yes, and it’s common in the outer townships. The gravel comes out, the subgrade gets rebuilt properly, and a concrete apron goes in at the curb.
How thick should a new concrete driveway be?
Four inches handles everyday passenger vehicles. If you’re parking a truck, an RV, or a work van, we spec it thicker and adjust the reinforcement to match.
Rebar or wire mesh?
Either works when it’s placed correctly — mid-slab, on chairs. Rebar is the call for heavier loads or lots with more soil movement. We spec it per site, not by habit.
How long before I can drive on it?
Light foot traffic after a day or two. Keep vehicles off for about a week so the slab reaches enough strength to take the weight without hairlining.
Can concrete be poured in winter here?
Sometimes, with a modified mix and insulated blankets. But if the forecast doesn’t support a clean cure, we’ll tell you to wait rather than pour something that scales in year one.
Ready to Put a Driveway Where There Isn't One?
Tell us what you’re working with — a slope, a gravel strip, a raw yard behind a new build. We’ll come out, look at the grade and the drainage, and put a real scope in writing.