Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete pours driveways, patios and pool decks in Lake Forest, 15 miles down the 405 and the 5 from Newport Boulevard. The figure is written on the day, before we leave.
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The forest in the name is a eucalyptus plantation. Dwight Whiting planted the groves for timber around 1900, the tracts were laid out through them 60 years later, and the trees kept their roots.
A eucalyptus takes its water from the top 2 feet of ground and sends roots out well past its canopy, so a walk or a drive within 30 feet of one is lifted from below as the roots thicken. The leaf litter is the other half of it. The oil in it stains a plain slab dark and holds water on the surface through the winter, which is why the patios on the old grove streets are both cracked and mottled. Felling the tree is rarely the answer, since its roots hold the slope.
So a slab near a eucalyptus is built to live with it. We cut the roots that cross the line of the pour and set a root barrier along the tree side, 18 inches deep, before the base goes in. The slab itself is poured 5 inches thick with number 3 steel on a 16-inch grid, so it spans a root rather than tipping over it, and the joints are set closer under the canopy. A sealer goes on any slab that sits under a tree, because sealed concrete washes clean of the oil rather than taking it in.
Lake Forest is two cities in one, the flat El Toro tracts and lake streets of the 1960s and 1970s, and the foothill tracts built since the 1990s. The eight jobs below change between the valley floor and the hill, and the trees are on both.
Half the driveways in Lake Forest date from the 1960s and 1970s tracts along El Toro Road and have carried cars for 50 years. We break out the old slab, cut any eucalyptus root crossing the line, compact 4 inches of base and pour 5 inches with steel, jointed every 10 feet.
A patio on the lake streets is poured on ground graded flat to the water, and a patio in Portola Hills sits on a pad with a fill side that keeps settling. Both get a compacted base and steel, and the hill one is probed first so the base goes deeper where the ground is soft.
Stamped work in Lake Forest is asked for to match the paver entries the 1990s builders laid in Foothill Ranch. We press the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through the mix rather than on top, and seal it in 2 coats, which is also what keeps eucalyptus oil from marking it.
A walk under a eucalyptus in Lake Forest lifts at the root and becomes a step. We cut the root, set a barrier on the tree side, and pin the new panel to the old with dowels so the joint holds level. The parkway walk is the City's and needs its permit before we cut it.
Garage floors on the El Toro tracts were poured without a vapor barrier and stay damp through a wet winter. The slab comes out, a 10 mil barrier goes over compacted base, and the new floor is 4 inches and flat enough to coat, which is what an epoxy needs if it is going to hold.
Under trees a plain broom finish shows every leaf stain, so a Lake Forest yard is where we pour exposed aggregate most. The river stone mix goes down, the surface is hosed back an hour later so the stone stands proud of the paste, and the slab is sealed once cured.
A wall on a Foothill Ranch or Portola Hills lot holds the cut side of a pad, and the hill behind it drains onto it every winter. The footing goes 18 inches into undisturbed ground, drain rock and a perforated pipe run behind the stem, and the steel is doweled into the footing.
An interior floor in Lake Forest goes into a garage conversion or a backyard unit more often than a new house. We pour over a vapor barrier, float it flat enough to tile or polish, and set the joints on a grid drawn to the room, so a stained finish reads as one surface.
We reach Lake Forest by the 405 south to the El Toro Y, where it becomes the 5, and leave at Lake Forest Drive or El Toro Road, about 15 miles and 25 minutes from Newport Boulevard on a weekday morning. Permits come from the Building Division of the City of Lake Forest at the Civic Center on Civic Center Drive. The city incorporated in 1991 out of the old town of El Toro, and our work orders still carry both names, since the older tracts were sold as El Toro.
The oldest concrete is on the flat ground either side of El Toro Road and Rockfield Boulevard, where the 1960s and 1970s tracts sit on the grove grid and the drives have carried cars for 50 years. The lake streets came next, around the two man-made lakes east of Lake Forest Drive, on lots graded flat to the water. Foothill Ranch and Portola Hills, built from the 1990s on the slopes below Saddleback, are a different job, with pads cut into the hill and an association to satisfy.
Two creeks run through the middle of it. Serrano Creek and Aliso Creek take the city's drainage down toward the 5, and the lots between them fall a few inches toward the channel, which is the way a patio here is graded. Summers run 10 degrees hotter than at our office on the coast, so from June to September we pour at first light and keep the slab wet under a sheet for 7 days. On the hill tracts rain arrives as runoff from above, so a drive below a slope gets a trench drain.
One crew from the measure to the joints, and one written figure. The visit is free, the estimate is written at your kitchen table with each part of the job on its own line, and the date is set once the permit and association letter are in.
Julian Mercado measures the slab, walks the tree line to see where the roots cross it, probes the subgrade and writes the estimate on site.
We file with the City of Lake Forest Building Division where a permit applies, and your association gets a drawing of the street side.
Roots across the pour are cut and a barrier set, the subgrade is compacted, 4 inches of base goes down and the steel is tied on its grid.
The pour is one morning and the joints are cut before we leave that day. The slab stays covered and wet for 7 days, and cars go on after a week.
Call or send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to set a time. We measure, check the trees and the ground, and write the figure before we leave. It costs nothing whether you go ahead or not.
Reviews
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by people we have poured for across coastal Orange County. Lake Forest work is priced, poured and guaranteed the same way.
“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.”
The six things people in Lake Forest ask before they book, on cost, the permit, how far we come, the trees and the hill ground, how long the slab is out of use and which towns next door we also cover.
The tree and the slope, before the slab. A drive under a eucalyptus needs its roots cut and a barrier set, and a drive on a Portola Hills pad needs a deeper base on its fill side, and each adds a day. The area, the thickness and the finish set the rest. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and each of those is its own line, so you can see what the tree costs and what the slab costs.
Not for a drive, a patio or a walk inside your own lot. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a slab that carries a cover or a room, and any work on the approach or the parkway need one from the City of Lake Forest Building Division. Foothill Ranch, Portola Hills and Baker Ranch also have an association that reviews what is seen from the street, and it gets the drawing before we file with the city.
About 15 miles by the 405 and the 5, and a crew is on site in 25 minutes on a weekday morning. That is close enough that the estimator who measures the job is the foreman who pours it, and close enough that we come back for the joints and the cover the same afternoon. We are in Lake Forest most weeks, so a visit fits around your week rather than ours.
Yes. Our office sits on sand that drains and does not move, and Lake Forest sits on clay-bearing silt that swells in a wet winter and shrinks by September. A slab poured straight on it lifts at the edge in the first wet year. So the base here is 4 inches of compacted rock on a compacted subgrade, and on the hill tracts we probe for the fill side of the pad and take the base deeper there.
About 10 days from the first day on site. Demolition and the base take 2 days, the pour is a morning, and the concrete takes a person after 24 hours and a car after 7 days. In summer the slab is kept covered and wet for that week, because the inland heat dries a surface faster than the concrete under it can set.
Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods, Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo, from the same office. The line between Lake Forest and Laguna Hills runs through the middle of the streets off El Toro Road, and the one with Mission Viejo follows the creek, so if you are not sure which city your lot is in, the address on your tax bill settles it and the permit follows the city.
Lake Forest sits between Laguna Hills, Laguna Woods and Mission Viejo, with Aliso Viejo over the ridge, and one crew covers all of them from Costa Mesa. Each has its own page, because the ground and the age of the houses change at the line.
Open the Costa Mesa Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and we call you back within 1 business day to book the free visit. The estimate is written on site, and the finished work carries a written guarantee.