Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete pours drives, patios and pool decks in Laguna Hills, half an hour from Costa Mesa by the 73. Every estimate is measured and written on site, ground probed first.
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A Laguna Hills pad is half cut and half fill. The grader took the top off the hill and pushed it downslope to level the lot, so one side of the yard is native ground and the other is placed soil.
The two halves do not move alike. The cut side is dense and hardly settles, while the fill side keeps compacting under its own weight and every winter's water, so a slab poured across the line is held on one edge and let down on the other. That is why a crack in a Laguna Hills patio so often runs straight across it in one place, parallel to the slope, rather than in the spidered pattern a thin slab gives. The clay in the fill swells wet and shrinks dry, so the line works twice a year.
So we find the line before we pour. The estimate visit probes the subgrade at both ends of the slab, and where the ground changes we dig the fill side out deeper and replace it with compacted base in layers. Steel runs continuous across the line on an 18 inch grid, a control joint is cut on the line itself so the movement has somewhere to go, and the slab is pitched to a yard drain rather than onto the fill. On a lot that is all cut, the base is standard and the estimate says so.
Laguna Hills lots were made by a grader, not found. Every pad on a hillside street is part cut into the hill and part filled out over it, and the concrete that lasts here is the concrete that knows where the line between the two runs.
A Laguna Hills drive on a hillside street is often on the fill side of the pad, because the garage sits at the front where the grader pushed the soil out. We compact the base in layers, run steel across the whole slab, pour 4 inches for cars, and broom it for grip.
The patio is the job we are asked for most in Laguna Hills, since the back of a 1970s pad was left as lawn and the lawn sits on the fill. We probe for the cut and fill line, rebuild the base deeper on the soft side, and pour 4 inches with a joint on the line.
Stamped patios in Laguna Hills are asked for in slate and flagstone, to sit with the tile roofs the tracts were built with. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through the mix rather than on top, and seal it in 2 coats against the sun on this side of the hills.
A walk in Laguna Hills usually runs from the drive around the side of the house, on the strip between the wall and the fence where the pad edge meets the fill. We pour it at 4 inches, joint it every 5 feet, and pitch it away from the foundation toward the yard drain.
Garage floors in Laguna Hills crack along the cut and fill line more than they sweat, because the garage is at the front of the pad where the ground changes. We cut out the failed slab, rebuild the base across the line, pour 5 inches over a vapor barrier, and joint it there.
Exposed aggregate suits a Laguna Hills pool deck and entry, since it grips wet and reads as stone against a stucco house. We seed the surface with river stone, wash the paste off it the same afternoon, and seal it so the inland sun and the pool water leave the color where it was.
A retaining wall in Laguna Hills holds the edge of the pad the grader made, and it fails when water builds behind it. We footing the wall into firm material below the fill, run drain rock and a perforated pipe behind the stem to an outlet, and draw it for the city over 4 feet.
Interior floors in Laguna Hills are the slab for a room built on the old patio or a garage turned into living space. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier, trowel it flat enough for tile or polishing, and lay the joints on the room's grid so any crack sits under the flooring.
The 73 toll road starts in Costa Mesa, crosses the San Joaquin Hills and comes down to Aliso Creek Road, which runs straight into Laguna Hills, so a crew leaves our office on Newport Boulevard and is on a Laguna Hills street in about half an hour with no time on the 5. The mixer takes the same road. Permits, where a job needs one, come from the Building Division at Laguna Hills City Hall on El Toro Road, and we file them and meet the inspector.
The town was built in two pushes. The tracts between the 5 and Moulton Parkway went up in the 1960s and 1970s on the smaller pads, where a drive is short and a patio is reached through a side gate, and the lots in Nellie Gail Ranch on the hill off Moulton Parkway are from the 1980s, an acre or more with a horse trail behind the fence and a drive that is a road in its own right. The first kind is a day's pour from a truck at the curb. The second is a pump and two days.
Aliso Creek runs through the middle of the city on its way to the ocean at Laguna Beach, and the ground near it is alluvium, flatter and softer than the hillside cut. The town is on the inland side of the hills, so the marine layer that keeps a Costa Mesa pour damp burns off earlier here and a July afternoon runs warmer. A summer pour in Laguna Hills starts at first light, is jointed by early afternoon, and is kept wet under a cover for the first days.
Four steps, and the first is a probe of the ground at both ends of the slab, because a Laguna Hills estimate that has not found the cut and fill line is a guess about the base.
Julian Mercado measures the slab, probes the subgrade at each end for the change from cut to fill, and writes the estimate at the house.
A patio or drive inside the lot needs none. A wall over 4 feet, a footing or a cut into a slope goes to the Building Division on El Toro Road.
Old concrete out, the fill side dug deeper and rebuilt in compacted layers, gravel over all of it and steel run continuous across the slab.
The pour is one morning, joints cut that afternoon with one on the cut and fill line, and the slab kept damp. Cars after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, after the ground has been probed at both ends of the slab, so the base is priced for what the probe finds.
Reviews
Three reviews from Google, Facebook and the BBB, left by customers in Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Newport Beach. A Laguna Hills job is measured and built the same way, by the same crew.
“Our driveway on the State Streets was the 1955 original, broken into plates that rocked underfoot. They dug out a foot of old planter fill, compacted it, poured 560 square feet at 4 inches with a 5-inch apron and pulled the curb permit themselves. Eighteen months in and it is flat.”
“I own a fourplex in Fountain Valley and the garage slabs were sweating every winter. They cut out all four, laid a vapor barrier and 4 inches of gravel, poured them at 5 inches over two days and gave me one estimate per unit. First winter since, the floors are dry.”
“We needed a slab for a detached studio behind our Newport Beach house. The owner dug the footings 12 inches, set the rebar and the vapor barrier, had the City inspect it, and poured 400 square feet in one morning. The framer said it was the flattest slab he had worked on all year.”
What we are asked on Laguna Hills doorsteps. What moves the estimate on a graded lot, who issues the permit, how far the crew comes, the cut and fill under the yard, how long the slab is out of use and more.
The base, before the slab. On a pad that is part cut and part fill the fill side is dug deeper and rebuilt in compacted layers, which is the one cost a flat lot never has, and a pump adds crew hours where the truck cannot reach a hillside yard. Size, thickness and finish move it after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the base as its own line.
Not for flatwork inside your lot line, under the California Residential Code. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing for a cover or a room, and any cut into a slope go to the Building Division at Laguna Hills City Hall on El Toro Road, and work at the curb needs the city's encroachment permit as well. Many tracts here have an association that wants to see the plan too. We file all of it.
About half an hour by the 73 toll road, which starts in Costa Mesa and comes down at Aliso Creek Road. We do not drive the 5 to get here, so the morning traffic at the El Toro Y does not set our start time. The crew is booked for the day, the mixer is ordered to arrive when the forms are ready, and a job here is never squeezed in after a nearer one.
Usually both, and the line between them is what we look for. The uphill side of a pad is native ground the grader cut into, dense and dry. The downhill side is that same soil pushed out and compacted decades ago, softer and wetter. A probe at each end of the slab finds the change, and we build the base deeper on the fill side and put a joint on the line so the slab can move there and nowhere else.
The crew is on site 2 to 4 days, with the pour on one morning of them. Walk on the slab after 24 hours and drive on it after 7 days, and keep a truck off for 28. A pool deck is the same, though the pool is usually back in use before the deck is, since we pour it in halves so one side is always open.
Yes. Laguna Woods is the other side of El Toro Road, Aliso Viejo is up the hill on Aliso Creek Road, Lake Forest is north on the 5 and Laguna Niguel and Mission Viejo are south. All of them are on our list and each has its own page, because the permit counter and the ground change at the city line even where the street does not.
Laguna Hills shares its lines with Laguna Woods, Aliso Viejo, Lake Forest, Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel, and we cover every one from the same office in Costa Mesa. Each has its own page, and if your street sits on a line, the next page may be yours.
Open the Costa Mesa Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is free and written at the house, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee.