Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete pours driveways, pool decks and patios in Mission Viejo, 20 miles down the 405 and the 5, on a spec written for the hill and not the beach. Free, written on site.
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Our office sits on a mesa of sand that drains and holds still. Mission Viejo sits on siltstone that swells wet and shrinks dry, so a base that is enough in Costa Mesa is not enough here.
On the coast a compacted sand subgrade and 4 inches of rock carry a slab for decades, because the ground under it neither heaves in January nor drops in August. Mission Viejo ground does both. The bedrock of the Saddleback Valley is a clay-bearing siltstone, the pads on it were built up with fill, and a slab poured on the coastal spec lifts along one edge the first wet winter. The failures we are called to here are almost never a bad pour. They are a good pour on the wrong base.
So the specification that leaves our yard for Mission Viejo is a different sheet. The subgrade is probed at the corners and the middle, soft fill is dug out and replaced, the rock base goes to 6 inches instead of 4 and is compacted in two lifts, and the slab carries number 4 steel on a 16-inch grid rather than the lighter mesh a coastal drive needs. Joints are cut on a tighter grid so a crack from ground movement lands in one, and a pitched drive gets a thickened edge at its low end.
Mission Viejo is the far end of our run and the one place we cover where nearly every lot has a slope in it. The eight jobs below are the ones the hill asks for, and each is done differently here than on the flat sand where we are based.
A Mission Viejo driveway is pitched, up or down to the garage, so it carries a car's weight and the winter runoff on one slope. We pour it 5 inches thick on 6 inches of compacted rock with number 4 steel, thicken the low edge, and set a trench drain where it falls to the door.
A patio here sits on the bench the grader cut behind the house, and the fill side of that bench keeps settling. We probe the pad, replace anything soft, compact the base in two lifts and pour 4 inches with steel, jointed every 8 feet so a movement crack lands in a joint.
Stamped work in Mission Viejo is chosen to match the paver and stone entries the 1990s builders laid, and it goes to the architectural committee before the city. We pour 4 inches, press the pattern, color it through the mix, and seal it against the summer sun.
Walks on the older Aegean Hills and Casta del Sol streets have cracked along the cut and fill seam under them. We break out the failed panels, compact the ground, pour new ones pinned to the sound panels, and where a walk climbs we hold the pitch under 5 percent.
Garage floors on pitched lots take water in at the door in a winter storm and stay damp under it. We cut the slab out, lay a 10 mil barrier over compacted rock, pour 4 inches flat, and cut a drain across the threshold where the drive falls toward the house.
Around a Mission Viejo pool the finish is usually exposed aggregate, chosen because the dust that blows off the hills vanishes into a stone surface and a wet foot holds on it. The river stone mix is pumped or chuted, hosed back once it has set enough, and sealed after a month.
A retaining wall in Mission Viejo holds the step at the back of the pad, and the hill above it drains onto it every winter. We foot it 18 inches into undisturbed siltstone rather than the fill, put drain rock and a pipe behind the stem, and dowel the wall steel into the footing.
A room added on the fill side of a Mission Viejo pad is where the ground moves most, and its floor is poured to allow for it. The barrier goes down over compacted rock, the slab is 4 inches on steel, the top is floated for tile, and every joint sits where a wall will stand.
We take the 405 south until it becomes the 5 at the El Toro Y and leave at Alicia Parkway, La Paz Road or Oso Parkway, depending on which side of the city the job is on, about 20 miles and half an hour from Newport Boulevard on a weekday morning. Building permits are issued by the Building Division of the City of Mission Viejo, and most of the city also answers to a homeowners association with an architectural committee that reviews anything visible from the street.
The Mission Viejo Company graded the city out of ranch land from the mid 1960s, and it incorporated in 1988. The result is planned tracts on terraced pads, from the earliest streets around Aegean Hills and Casta del Sol to the 1990s neighborhoods of Pacific Hills and Painted Trails, with Lake Mission Viejo in the middle. Because every lot was cut into a slope, the driveway is pitched, the back yard steps, and the pool deck sits on a bench the grader made.
The two creeks the city drains to, Oso Creek and Trabuco Creek, run along the valley floor toward the 5, and the pads above them shed water downhill across the next lot. So a slab here is graded with its neighbors in mind, and a drive that falls toward the garage gets a trench drain at the door. Summer afternoons run into the 90s, 10 degrees hotter than the coast, so from June to September the truck is on site at first light and the slab is covered and kept wet for 7 days.
One crew from the probe to the last joint, and one written figure before any of it. The estimate lists the base, the steel, the pour and the haul-away as separate lines, and the date is set once the city and the association have signed off.
Julian Mercado probes the pad at the corners and the middle, measures the slope and the area, and writes the estimate at the property.
The drawing goes to your association's architectural committee first, then to the City of Mission Viejo Building Division if a permit applies.
Soft fill is dug out and replaced, the subgrade is compacted, 6 inches of rock goes in as two lifts, and number 4 steel is tied on its grid.
The pour is one morning, the joints are cut that afternoon, and the slab stays under a wet sheet for 7 days before we walk it with you.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day. On the visit we probe the pad, measure the slope and write the estimate before leaving, so the figure you hold is for the hillside spec and not the coastal one. It costs nothing.
Reviews
Three reviews from Google, Facebook and the BBB. They were left by homeowners and a landlord across the coast, and a Mission Viejo job is measured, 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.”
Six questions from Mission Viejo homeowners, on cost, the permit and the association, how far we come, why the hill needs a deeper base, how long a slab is out of use and which towns we also cover.
Because the base is deeper and the steel is heavier. A hillside pad needs 6 inches of compacted rock instead of 4, soft fill dug out and replaced, and number 4 steel rather than mesh, and each of those is more material and more crew time. After that it is area, thickness and finish, as anywhere. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the base and the steel as their own lines.
Two bodies, usually. The Building Division of the City of Mission Viejo permits a retaining wall over 4 feet, a slab that carries a cover or a room, and anything at the street, and flatwork inside your own lot needs nothing from it. Most neighborhoods also sit under a homeowners association whose architectural committee reviews the street side, and we send it the drawing first.
About 20 miles and half an hour by the 405 and the 5. It is the south end of our run, so we plan Mission Viejo jobs in the same weeks as Lake Forest and Laguna Hills and the crew stays on the job through the pour rather than driving back and forth. Nothing else is different for the distance. The person who probes your pad pours the slab, and the call back comes within 1 business day.
Because the ground moves. Costa Mesa is sand that drains and stays put, and Mission Viejo is siltstone with clay in it that swells in a wet winter and shrinks by September, with graded fill on top that keeps settling. A slab on 4 inches of rock rides that out on the coast and cracks here. So the base goes to 6 inches in two compacted lifts, soft fill is replaced, and heavier steel holds the slab in one piece.
About 2 weeks from the first day on site. Demolition takes a day, the base takes 2 because it goes in as two compacted lifts, the pour is a morning and the joints are cut that afternoon. The slab carries a person after 24 hours and a car after 7 days. Through the summer it stays under a wet sheet for that week, because inland heat would otherwise dry the top before the concrete under it has set.
Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo, all from the Costa Mesa office and all on the same hillside spec. The lines between them run through tracts rather than along roads, so if you do not know which city a lot is in, the parcel record says, and the permit and the association follow the city. Each of the four has its own page.
Mission Viejo shares its lines with Lake Forest, Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel and Aliso Viejo, and we cover all four from the same office on the same hillside spec. Each has its own page, since the age of the tracts and the pitch of the lots change.
Open the Costa Mesa Office in Google Maps Send the form or call, and the call back comes within 1 business day. The visit is free, the estimate is handed over on the day, and the slab is guaranteed in writing against defects.