Concrete patios, broom finished or stamped

Sizing a concrete patio for how you'll use it

A patio built for two chairs and a small table doesn't need the footprint of a full outdoor dining set or a fire pit with room to pull seats back. Think through what's going on it and how many people usually need to fit, and size the slab around that.

A fire pit needs more room than the chairs around it suggest. Most fire pits call for open clearance around them, which adds to the footprint beyond just the seating itself.

Plan for a grill or a smoker off to one side too, so the cooking area doesn't eat into the space you wanted for sitting.

Broom finish or stamped concrete

A broom finish is the plainer, more common choice for a patio. The texture is dragged in with a broom once the surface has been floated, and it gives bare feet some grip when the slab is wet.

Color is part of the decision even on a plain broom finish: concrete can be tinted for the whole slab instead of left the standard gray. It's a simpler option than a full stamped pattern if you want some color without the added upkeep.

Stamped concrete presses a pattern and color into the surface for a look closer to stone, brick or tile. It holds up fine outdoors as long as it gets resealed on a regular schedule.

Why does a concrete patio need to slope away from the house?

A patio is poured with a slight slope built in, angled away from the foundation so water runs off into the yard instead of pooling against the house. That slope is easy to miss looking at a finished patio, but it's doing real work every time it rains.

The seam where the patio meets the house usually gets a joint too, which gives the two surfaces room to move independently.

Where the yard falls away from the house, a patio sometimes needs a step or two down at its outer edge instead of sitting flush with the grass. That's a detail to mention when you reach out.

Joints and cracks in a new concrete patio

Every concrete patio gets joints cut or tooled into it on purpose, laid out ahead of the pour so the slab has chosen lines to follow as it shrinks while curing. A crack that follows one of those lines is the joint doing its job.

Joints usually run in a grid, with extra ones at inside corners, around posts or steps, and wherever the slab changes direction.

A poured patio or a paver patio: how each one ages

Concrete goes down as one continuous slab, while pavers are individual units set in a bed of sand or gravel.

Pavers make it easier to swap out a single damaged piece without redoing the whole surface, which is one reason some homeowners lean that way. Concrete gives up a little of that flexibility in exchange for a smoother, more uniform surface, with no joints between individual units to catch a chair leg or work loose over time.

Our pavers vs. concrete guide walks through how they compare on cracking, weeds and upkeep over time. For typical price ranges by size and finish, see our concrete patio cost guide.

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