Site Work, Concrete & Paving in Aiken, South Carolina

Pave-Way started in Aiken. The company that became Pave-Way of Augusta, Aiken was formed here before the headquarters moved across the river to Gordon Highway in 1978, and the Aiken office on Silver Bluff Road has been open ever since. Three generations of the Bryan family have run it.

We work Aiken County from that office — land clearing, site grading, stormwater and drainage, demolition and excavation, concrete driveways, sidewalks and curb and gutter, asphalt and gravel drives, and full site packages.

Sand is the defining fact about building here

Aiken sits in the Sandhills, the belt of deep sandy soils that runs south and east of the Fall Line. It is the reason this became horse country — sand drains fast and gives sound footing, which is why the thoroughbred and polo crowd established a winter colony here in the late 1800s and why the equestrian industry is still one of the county’s defining features.

For site work it is a genuinely different problem from the clay a few miles into Georgia.

Drainage is usually the easy part. Water goes into sand rather than sitting on it. The standing-water complaints that dominate our Columbia County work are much less common here.

Stability is the hard part. Sand carries load poorly unless it is properly confined and compacted. A base that was placed and rolled a couple of times looks finished and will rut under the first loaded truck. Sand also erodes readily on any slope while the ground is open, which makes erosion control during construction a practical necessity rather than a box to tick.

And where sand sits over clay, which happens plenty around here, you get both problems at once — water moves down freely until it hits the clay layer and then travels sideways, often to somewhere inconvenient.

We dig into the subgrade before quoting rather than assuming what is under a site.

Rural drives, farms and long approaches

A large share of our Aiken work is nothing like a subdivision driveway. Quarter- mile approaches, farm and equestrian entrances that have to carry a loaded trailer in wet weather, steep rural drives, and gravel roads that wash out every spring.

These are mostly drainage and shaping problems with a surfacing step at the end. On sandy ground with any fall at all, the question is whether water runs down the drive or off it. A drive with no crown becomes the lowest path on the property and turns into a watercourse. Crowning it, putting in cross drains where the slope demands them, and building somewhere for the water to go matters more than which surface goes on top.

We install asphalt, gravel and crush-and-run, and pour concrete where the length makes it sensible. Because we do all of them, we have no reason to push one.

Permitting in Aiken County

Which office you deal with depends on where the site sits and how much ground is being disturbed.

Inside the City of Aiken, grading, stormwater management and erosion and sediment control for commercial projects and residential subdivisions go through the Engineering and Utilities department.

Outside the city, Aiken County handles stormwater permitting, including an application for smaller disturbances, and sites inside the county’s MS4 boundary need an MS4 approval letter as part of the state filing.

At an acre or more, coverage is required under the state Construction General Permit through SCDES — the Department of Environmental Services, which took over stormwater permitting when South Carolina restructured DHEC. Older guidance still refers to SCDHEC; that is where it went.

We handle this on our own jobs and will tell you which approvals your site needs before we start.

The Aiken office

306 Silver Bluff Rd, Aiken, SC 29803. Our own equipment, our own crews, our own surveying, and no subcontracted paving.

Bonded, licensed and insured in South Carolina and Georgia. Free estimates, no obligation.