Smyrna, DE
Walkways Built for Smyrna's Older Homes and New Additions
Walkways in Smyrna do more than just connect point A to point B. They tie the front yard to the street, the driveway to the back door, the addition to the existing house. In a town where so many homes have been added onto over generations, those connections matter — and they need to be built for how Smyrna clay soil shifts through Delaware winters.
Drive through any Smyrna neighborhood and you'll spot it: the front walk that heaved three inches last winter, the side path that's become a mud trough between the driveway and the back door, the concrete slab at the garage that sank toward the foundation. That's what happens when walkways were poured before modern base prep became standard. Smyrna's older housing stock — especially in Brittany Heights, Sunnyside, and along Main Street — was built with minimal sub-base, and 40 to 70 years of Kent County freeze-thaw cycles have taken their toll.
When we replace a walkway in Smyrna, we start by pulling the old slab and evaluating what's underneath. Most of the time it's native clay with no gravel base. We excavate to frost depth, lay a compacted stone base, and pour 4-inch thick concrete with fiber mesh reinforcement. That's what keeps a walkway from heaving when the ground freezes in January and thaws in March. For properties in Lake Forest South and Cresswell Pointe, where the ground was graded more recently, we still use the same prep — new subdivisions don't always get the base depth a walkway needs to last.
A lot of Smyrna-Clayton homeowners are adding on — a garage here, a sunroom there — and the walkway from the old part of the house to the new space has to tie in cleanly. We match elevation, joint pattern, and finish so the addition doesn't look tacked on. On properties near Bombay Hook, where the water table sits higher, we install perforated drains alongside the walkway base to keep water from pooling under the slab. In-town Smyrna lots with limited side-yard access get a narrower walkway that still meets code for clearance and slope.
For Smyrna homeowners who need ADA-compliant access — whether for aging in place on a historic Main Street home or for a family member with mobility needs — we build walkways with gentle slopes, wide enough for a wheelchair or walker, with transitions at the curb that don't trip you up. We also handle public sidewalk repairs near the Opera House and commercial fronts along US-13. If your HOA in Smyrna Landing needs common-area walkways maintained, we coordinate that too. Every walkway gets a written scope before we break ground.
