Carlsbad Concrete Group has grown into coastal San Diego's go-to team in backyard sport court slabs, specializing in basketball half courts, pickleball court pads, and multi-sport slabs with two sets of lines. We offer embedded net post sleeves and in-ground hoop anchors.
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Our team provides steel-troweled court surfaces, delivering a fast, even bounce for homes and durable play areas for both residential and commercial projects. Backed by 11 years in business and our 1-year written workmanship warranty, we've completed over 1,460 projects, from a single shooting key beside a garage to a full multi-sport pad on an estate lawn.
From a laser-shot fall of a fraction of an inch across the court to the sleeves, conduit and the final trowel pass, our team handles every detail. Serving Carlsbad and neighboring Fairbanks Ranch, Rancho Santa Fe and Poway, we lay out every court around the way your family actually plays.
Request a free estimate, and we will shoot the grades on your lawn and show you which court sizes fit before you commit.
What you can hold us to
Mitchell, Fairbanks Ranch South, Fairbanks Ranch
A sloped side lawn where the family wanted a basketball half court
Investment and duration figures are estimates. Your written quote sets the final price and schedule.
Mitchell's family in Fairbanks Ranch South now plays on a 30 x 32 ft half court that drained clean after the first winter storm, with no birdbaths anywhere on the key. The side lawn sloped away from the house, so we cut the pad level, set the forms to a tight tolerance and poured a reinforced, steel-troweled slab ready for an acrylic court surface. The surfacer coated it after the cure, and the hoop anchor went into its own footing in the same pour. It came in at an estimated $6,800 to $8,900 and took an estimated 3 to 5 days of site work, from the cut to stripping the forms.
A backyard court is sized by the game first and the lot second, and we measure the flat ground you have before drawing any lines. A regulation pickleball court is 20 by 44 ft with the net posts 22 ft apart, plus run-off room behind each baseline, the court most Encinitas and Solana Beach families ask us for. A basketball half court plays well at about 30 x 30 ft, enough to reach a high school three-point arc of 19.75 ft with room to spare, the pad size Harmony Grove and Bonsall families usually choose. On sloped La Costa and Olivenhain lots a level court often means cutting into the hill, which can bring an engineered retaining wall into the plan, and we say so at the first visit.
Every court we pour tilts very slightly toward one side, since a perfectly level pad keeps standing water and a damp spot kills the bounce, on every court we pour from Leucadia to Lomas Santa Fe. We shoot the grades at the first visit, write the fall into the plan and carry it with the forms and the screed corner to corner. Runoff spills off the downhill edge into planting, a slot drain or a shallow swale, and we never aim it at the house. When the court sits under a hillside, we add an interceptor drain along the uphill edge so a storm after a dry Santa Ana spell does not send mud across the lines.
Sleeves for net posts, hoop anchors and conduit for court lights are cast into the pour, because drilling a finished court risks cracking it and rarely leaves a post plumb. Each pickleball post sleeve gets a small footing of its own, set at regulation spacing and capped level with the court so nobody trips on it. An in-ground hoop gets the anchor system its maker specifies, set to the maker's template. Conduit for lights or low-voltage edge lighting runs under the slab before the steel is tied, so no trench crosses the court later, a request we hear on most Del Mar courts.
A level 30 x 30 ft court slab ready for an acrylic surface and hoop
Demolition, haul-off, compacted base, rebar and a broom or exposed finish for a 2-car drive
Integral color, a stamp pattern and release, sealed after cure, about 400 sq ft
Tear-out around the coping, new base and steel, a cool broom, salt or exposed finish
A poured cantilevered wall with footing, steel and drainage behind it, about 50 linear ft
Rough-sawn board forms leave the wood grain in the face, about 200 sq ft of wall
Investment and duration figures are estimates. Your written quote sets the final price and schedule.
A backyard sport court slab in Carlsbad is estimated at roughly $4,500 to $9,000 for a level pad of about 30 x 30 ft, and the cut on a sloped lot, the reinforcement and truck access move the price most. Court coating, fence panels and lighting appear as separate lines on the quote.
| Court job | Est. investment | Est. duration |
|---|---|---|
| Sport court slab, basketball half court (about 30 x 30 ft) | Est. $4,500 to $9,000 per project | Est. 3 to 5 days |
| Pickleball court slab with net post sleeves | Est. $5,000 to $9,000 per project | Est. 3 to 5 days |
| Shooting key pad beside a driveway | Est. $4,500 to $6,000 per project | Est. 3 to 4 days |
| Multi-sport slab with pickleball and basketball lines | Est. $6,000 to $9,000 per project | Est. 4 to 5 days |
A flat Poway or Lake San Marcos back yard usually lands in the lower half of these ranges, while a cut into a Fairbanks Ranch North slope or a pump over the house pushes a court toward the top.
Every court figure here is an estimate for Carlsbad and nearby cities and is subject to change after the site visit. The written quote we hand you sets the final price and the pour schedule, and it depends on court size, the grade and how the truck reaches the pad.
The concrete is the base and the playing surface is a separate system, so the surface you choose decides how we finish the slab. The table compares the three surfaces our court customers pick most.
| Surface | Best for | What it asks of the slab |
|---|---|---|
| Acrylic court coating | Basketball and recreational pickleball | Steel-troweled, flat, fully cured before coating |
| Polyurethane sport surface | Tournament-style pickleball | A smooth, dry slab with no ridges at the joints |
| Modular snap-together tiles | Multi-sport family courts | A flat slab that drains, finish less critical |
| Bare broom-finished concrete | Shooting pads that double as parking | Light broom texture and standard joints |
The court itself is gray, steel-troweled concrete, and the finishes go around it: a seating area in stamped and decorative concrete, or a garden path to the court in a light broom. Broom-finish concrete typically runs $6 to $13 per sq ft installed for that surround.
Our owner walks every court layout before it is quoted, and the finishing foreman who trowels your slab is the same one who checks the fall. A crew of 3 to 5 pours each court in one placement, so there is no cold joint across the playing lines, and the 1-year workmanship warranty covers the slab from pour day. We have poured across a 35-mile radius for 11 years, from Aviara back yards to estate courts in Del Mar.
Most of our courts go onto the larger lots of Fairbanks Ranch, Rancho Santa Fe and Poway, where a full pad fits beside the pool. We also build in Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach, Elfin Forest and Harmony Grove, listed on our North County service area page.
A court is often one piece of a larger back yard, so owners pair it with pool deck concrete, a drained surround from our concrete drainage solutions crew, or a sport court slab beside an RV pad or side-yard slab for the boat.
A half-court slab is estimated at roughly $4,500 to $9,000 for about 30 x 30 ft, and your written quote after the site visit sets the final price.
Most court slabs take an estimated 3 to 5 days of site work, and the surface coating follows once the concrete has cured.
Yes, we cut the pad level or build it out, as we do on Olivenhain and Elfin Forest slopes, and a steep lot may need a retaining wall, which we flag at the first visit.
Yes, the sleeves and the hoop anchor are cast into the pour at the maker's spacing, never drilled into the finished slab, the same way Mitchell's hoop went in.
We pour the slab to the surfacer's flatness and finish requirements, and the court surface is applied as its own line after the cure.
All concrete shrinks, so we saw-cut control joints along the court lines and set rebar on chairs to keep any crack tight and on a joint.
Yes, we build courts across Rancho Santa Fe and check any review the Covenant requires for visible hardscape before work starts.
Every court carries our 1-year written workmanship warranty from the day the concrete is placed.
Call us or request a free estimate, and we will measure the lawn, shoot the fall and write an itemized quote for your court slab.
Start to finish
We measure the area, shoot the grades and check drainage before anything is quoted.
The quote names the tear-out, base, reinforcement, finish and control joint layout.
The subgrade is compacted and the forms and rebar are checked before the truck is booked.
The crew places, finishes and cuts the joints, then walks the cured work with you.
Where we work
Call us or send the form, and we will book a site walk and measure the job.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
