Concrete Staining in Del City

From a wheat field to 582 houses

In 1946 developer George Epperly bought a 160-acre wheat field southeast of Oklahoma City. By 1948 there were 582 homes on and around it, about three-quarters of them built by Epperly, and the residents voted to incorporate. Ranch houses from the 1950s and 1960s filled in around that first neighbourhood. Today Del City has 21,822 residents, borders Tinker Air Force Base, and is cut diagonally by I-40.

The houses are small by modern standards, and a lot of the concrete around them is old: front porches, walks, carport slabs and patios. Where the original late-1940s slabs are still in place, they could be more than 75 years old, though that varies from house to house.

Restoring instead of replacing

An old porch or carport slab does not have to look old. If it is still level and in one piece, it can be cleaned down to bare concrete, stained and sealed. Concrete this age usually takes acid stain unevenly, which gives a mottled, aged colour rather than a flat one, and that tends to suit a postwar house.

Preparation is most of the job. Decades of paint, old sealer and grime have to come off before stain will soak in. Slabs that have sunk toward the house or cracked into separate pieces need repair first. On a sound slab, sealing and stain restoration costs far less than breaking out and repouring.

Many houses near Tinker are rentals, and landlords between tenants often want a carport or patio refreshed rather than rebuilt. A patio stain on a modest ranch-house slab is a quick way to make a back yard look cared for.

Permits and licences at City Hall

Del City’s Community Development Permits Desk is at 3701 SE 15th St, (405) 677-5741 ext. 7314, permits@cityofdelcity.org. The City issues Residential Building, Miscellaneous Building and Public Right of Way permits. Its 2024 permit form for plumbing, electrical and mechanical trades requires contractors to hold both a State of Oklahoma licence and a City of Del City licence. Whether the same rule covers concrete contractors, and whether a driveway or patio replacement needs a permit, are worth confirming with the Permits Desk before work starts.

Nearby areas

Midwest City adjoins Del City to the east, and Oklahoma City is the other neighbour, with downtown about 7 miles to the northwest.

Del City concrete questions