Hear from Our Customers
Behind most homes in Clifton Heights the twins on Oak Avenue, the rowhomes near Baltimore Avenue, the capes along the southern edge toward Aldan the backyard is small. Not a liability, but not something you can afford to waste. A well-designed patio turns that space into the part of your home you actually use from May through September. Done right, it’s where the family lands after the Swim Club, where the grill lives, where summer actually happens.
What most homeowners don’t think about until it’s too late is what’s underneath the surface. Delaware County gets hit with 40 or more freeze-thaw cycles every year. Every time water gets into the ground beneath a patio, freezes, expands, and thaws again, it moves. If the base underneath wasn’t built to handle that if it’s too shallow, poorly compacted, or graded wrong that movement shows up as cracks, sunken sections, and heaving. You’ve probably seen it on older concrete slabs around Clifton Heights. That’s not bad luck. That’s a base that wasn’t built for this climate.
The other thing worth knowing: over 80% of Clifton Heights housing was built before 1970. Many of those original concrete slabs were poured without the base depth standards we use today. When you replace one, you have a real opportunity to do it correctly the first time with a base that’s built for Pennsylvania winters, not just the first few years after installation. That’s the difference between a patio that lasts a decade and one that lasts a lifetime.
We’re based in Aston, PA right here in Delaware County. Owner Renato Spennato has been doing this work for over 15 years, and we serve Clifton Heights specifically, not as a footnote to a five-state service area, but as a community we know and work in regularly. That matters because Clifton Heights has its own borough code enforcement office, its own permit requirements, and its own housing stock that’s different from what you’d find in Newtown or Broomall.
There are no subcontractors on a Spennato job. The crew that shows up on day one is the same crew that finishes the work and cleans up when it’s done. You have one contact, one point of accountability, and no handoff to someone who wasn’t part of the original conversation. In a borough this size 0.62 square miles your neighbors will notice who did the work. We want you to be proud of that answer.
It starts with a conversation about your space, your priorities, and your budget. For most Clifton Heights properties, that means talking honestly about yard size, how the patio connects to the back door, whether there’s a drainage concern near the property line, and what material makes the most sense for how you actually plan to use the space. You’ll get a written estimate that details scope, materials, and timeline no vague verbal quotes that shift when the bill arrives.
Once you approve the plan, we handle the permit process with Clifton Heights Borough. That includes the zoning and use application, providing the required PA HIC license number and certificate of insurance, and coordinating any required inspections. You don’t need to become an expert in borough code to get this done that’s handled for you.
Installation begins with excavation and base preparation. This is where most of the real work happens, even though it’s the part you’ll never see once the project is finished. A proper compacted aggregate base graded away from your foundation for drainage, installed in lifts to the correct depth for frost areas is what separates a patio that lasts from one that starts failing after a few winters. From there, the surface material goes down, edges are set, and joints are finished. When the crew leaves, your yard is clean and your patio is ready to use.
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We install interlocking concrete pavers, natural stone, flagstone, and poured or stamped concrete the full range, not just one or two options. That matters in Clifton Heights because the right material depends on your home’s architecture, your yard’s constraints, and how you plan to use the space. A flagstone patio complements the character of a 1940s twin in a way that plain concrete often doesn’t. Pavers give you design flexibility and a long-term repair advantage that poured concrete can’t match.
That repair advantage is worth understanding. When a concrete patio cracks and in this climate, it eventually will your options are limited. You patch it, or you tear it out. When a paver shifts or settles, you lift that paver, re-level the base beneath it, and set it back. The repair is localized and a fraction of the cost of a full replacement. For homeowners who have already watched one original slab fail, that distinction is not a small thing.
Pricing runs $15 to $50 per square foot depending on material, with most projects landing between $3,500 and $12,000. For a typical Clifton Heights backyard a well-proportioned patio of 150 to 300 square feet that range covers quality work done correctly. You’ll know the number before anything starts, and it won’t change without a conversation first.
Yes and this is one of the more common things homeowners in Clifton Heights get wrong. Clifton Heights Borough requires zoning approval before any patio installation begins. That means submitting a zoning and use application, paying the $75 application fee, and having your contractor provide a valid PA state HIC license number and certificate of insurance as part of the permit application. Building permit fees beyond that are based on the total cost of the project.
Any contractor who tells you a patio in Clifton Heights doesn’t need a permit is either misinformed or skipping a step that protects you. Unpermitted work can create problems when you sell your home or if an issue comes up later. We handle the permit process as a standard part of every project you won’t be left to figure out the borough’s code enforcement process on your own.
The honest range is $15 to $50 per square foot, depending on the material you choose. Poured concrete sits at the lower end. Interlocking pavers run in the middle. Natural stone and flagstone tend to be on the higher end, though they also tend to complement older home architecture which matters in Clifton Heights where most homes were built in the 1940s and 1950s better than any other option.
For a typical Clifton Heights backyard, a patio of 150 to 300 square feet is a realistic scope given the lot sizes behind most twins and rowhomes. That puts most projects somewhere between $3,500 and $12,000 in total. You’ll receive a written estimate before any work begins, and that number won’t shift without a direct conversation. There are no mid-project surprises about things that were “discovered” after the deposit cleared.
The short answer is freeze-thaw cycles. Delaware County gets hit with 40 or more of them every year. Every time moisture in the ground beneath a patio freezes, it expands. When it thaws, it contracts. Over time, that repeated movement shifts whatever is sitting on top of it concrete cracks, pavers sink, surfaces wave. The surface material is visible. The base underneath is not. And that’s exactly where the problem starts.
A properly built base compacted aggregate at the correct depth for frost areas, graded away from the foundation so water drains rather than pools, installed in lifts to achieve real density is what prevents that movement from translating into surface damage. Most of the original concrete work in Clifton Heights was poured without these standards. When you’re replacing an old slab, you have the opportunity to build the base correctly this time. That’s the investment that makes the difference between a patio that looks the same in year fifteen as it did in year one.
It depends on the look you want and how you plan to use the space, but pavers and flagstone both tend to work well in the constrained rear yards that are typical behind Clifton Heights rowhomes and twins. Pavers give you a clean, defined surface with design flexibility you can work with different patterns and border treatments to make a small space feel intentional rather than just filled in. Flagstone has a more natural, relaxed character that tends to suit the architecture of older homes in the borough.
What to avoid in a tight space is anything that makes the patio feel like an afterthought. Scale matters oversized pavers in a narrow yard can feel clunky, and a slab that runs edge-to-edge without any definition can feel like a parking pad. A well-designed small patio accounts for proportion, how the surface connects to the back door, whether there’s room for a border planting, and how the whole thing reads from inside the house. That kind of thinking is part of the conversation before any material gets selected.
For a standard residential patio 150 to 300 square feet, typical of most Clifton Heights properties the actual installation work usually runs two to four days once the project is underway. What adds time to the overall timeline is the front end: the permit process with Clifton Heights Borough, material lead times depending on what you’ve chosen, and scheduling based on the time of year.
If you’re hoping to have a patio ready for the outdoor season which in Delaware County realistically runs from late May through September you want to be planning and contracting by February or March at the latest. The spring installation window fills up quickly, and contractors who are doing the work correctly aren’t booking jobs the week before you want them done. Starting the conversation early gives you the best chance of getting on the schedule before the season gets away from you.
For a lot of homes in Clifton Heights, yes and the reason comes down to how the material reads against the architecture. The borough’s housing stock is predominantly rowhomes and twins built between the 1920s and 1960s. These are homes with character brick exteriors, iron railings, mature trees, a certain established feel to the streetscape. Flagstone, with its natural variation in color and texture, tends to complement that character in a way that stamped concrete or plain pavers sometimes don’t.
From a practical standpoint, flagstone also holds up well through Pennsylvania winters when it’s installed correctly meaning set on a proper compacted base with adequate drainage, not mortared directly onto a shallow bed that will heave and crack. The maintenance requirements are minimal, and natural stone doesn’t fade or look dated the way some manufactured materials can over time. It’s not the right choice for every yard or every budget, but for homeowners in Clifton Heights who want something that looks like it belongs with the house rather than something that was added later, flagstone is worth a serious look.
