Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete pours driveways, patios and garage floors in Newport Beach, the town next door, 10 minutes down Newport Boulevard from our office. Free, and written before we leave.
5.0 Stars Rated by our customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
In most towns we back a mixer up to the drive. In Newport Beach the drive is 20 feet of apron off an alley, and the mixer does not fit down it, so the concrete arrives through a pump hose.
The old beach lots were platted at 30 feet wide, with the house filling the lot and the garage opening onto the alley behind. That is Balboa Island, the Peninsula from the pier to the Wedge, and the flower streets of Corona del Mar. A truck parks on the nearest cross street, a line pump is set up beside it, and the hose runs 150 feet or more down the alley to the forms. The pump changes the mix, since pumped concrete wants smaller stone, and it blocks the alley for the morning.
So a Newport Beach estimate starts with the alley. We measure the run from the cross street to the forms, check whether the alley is city right-of-way and needs a permit to block, and book the pump for the morning the mixer arrives. Under the slab the ground is beach sand with the water table a few feet down on the flats, and terrace sand on the bluffs above the bay, so it is compacted before 4 inches of rock goes on, and a garage floor gets a 10 mil barrier over the damp sand.
Newport Beach is the nearest town we cover and the tightest to work in. Lots on the Peninsula, Balboa Island and the flower streets of Corona del Mar are narrow and served from an alley, so the jobs below are about access as much as the slab.
A Newport Beach driveway on the flats is a short apron off the alley to a garage that fills the lot, and the apron is city right-of-way. We pump 4 inches on compacted sand and rock, match the alley grade so the door does not flood at a king tide, and pull the encroachment permit.
Patios on the bluff streets of Newport Heights and Westcliff are poured on terrace sand that drains, and patios on the Peninsula are poured a few feet above the water table. Both get compacted rock and steel, and the low one is graded to the street because the sand holds water.
Stamped work in Newport Beach is asked for in slate and flagstone patterns to sit beside the stone the houses are faced in. The 4 inch slab is pumped in, the pattern pressed, the color mixed through and the seal put on in 2 coats, so it holds up to a summer of sun off the water.
Walks on the numbered streets of the Peninsula and the flower streets of Corona del Mar are often the city's parkway walk, replaced under an encroachment permit to the city's standard. We break out the lifted panel, compact the sand, and pour it pinned level to its neighbors.
A Newport Beach garage on the flats stands on damp sand, and the original slab sweats every winter. We cut it out, lay 4 inches of rock and a 10 mil barrier, and pump 4 inches level and flat, with a drain at the alley door where the apron falls toward it, so a coating holds.
Sand walked in from the beach disappears into an exposed aggregate surface and sits on a broom finish, which is why most Newport Beach patios and pool surrounds are poured with the stone showing. The mix is pumped in, hosed back an hour after the pour, and sealed once cured.
A wall in Newport Beach holds a bluff garden in Cliff Haven or a graded pad in Newport Coast, and either drains onto it in winter. We foot it 18 inches into firm ground, put drain rock and a pipe behind the stem, dowel the steel into the footing and give the bars extra cover.
A room over the garage on a Peninsula lot gets its floor by pump, because nothing else reaches it. The 10 mil barrier goes over compacted rock, 4 inches is pumped on steel, the top is floated flat enough for tile, and the joints are placed under the walls of the room.
Newport Boulevard runs from our door past the 55 and onto the Peninsula, about 3 miles to Lido Isle and 5 to the Balboa Pier, so a crew is on site in 10 to 15 minutes without touching a freeway. Corona del Mar and Newport Coast are reached along Coast Highway or MacArthur Boulevard. Building permits come from the Community Development Department at the Civic Center on Avocado Avenue, and a lot in the coastal zone is reviewed there under the city's coastal program first.
The city is three kinds of ground with one name. The Peninsula, Balboa Island and Lido Isle are sand and fill a few feet above the tide, where any hole fills with water by lunchtime. Newport Heights, Cliff Haven, Westcliff and Dover Shores sit on the bluff above the bay, on the same marine terrace our office stands on. Corona del Mar and Eastbluff are on the terrace south of the bay, and Newport Coast is graded pads on the hills behind, closer to hill ground than to beach.
The Back Bay splits the city, so a job in Dover Shores and a job in Eastbluff can be a mile apart across the water and 15 minutes apart by Jamboree Road, and the crew plans the day around the bridge. The weather is ours. The marine layer sits on Newport Beach most mornings from May to August and keeps a fresh pour damp, and salt air does nothing to cured concrete. What the sea does reach is the steel, so on the flats the bars get 3 inches of cover instead of 2.
One visit, one written figure, one crew. Because most Newport Beach jobs are pumped, the estimate names the pump and the alley closure as their own lines, and the pour is booked as a single morning so the alley is open again by afternoon.
Julian Mercado measures the slab, walks the alley run from the nearest cross street, probes the sand and writes the estimate at the property.
We file any encroachment or building permit with the city, book the pump and the mixer for one window, and set the date once the permit is in.
The old slab is broken out and carried to the street, the sand is plate-compacted, 4 inches of rock goes down, and the steel is tied.
The pour is one morning through the hose, the joints are cut that afternoon, and the slab is kept damp for 7 days. Cars go on after a week.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day, and because it is 10 minutes away the visit is usually this week. We measure the slab and the alley run and write the figure at the property, and there is no charge for either.
Reviews
Three reviews from Google, Facebook and the BBB, one of them a Newport Beach family whose studio slab we poured and had the city inspect. The other two are a Costa Mesa homeowner and a landlord.
“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 Newport Beach homeowners ask before they book, on cost, the permit and the coastal zone, how close we are, sand and salt, how long the alley and the slab are out of use, and what else we cover nearby.
The pump and the alley, before the slab. A job on the Peninsula, Balboa Island or the flower streets is pumped from the nearest cross street, which adds the pump crew and an alley closure, and a bluff job the mixer can reach needs neither. After that it is area, thickness and finish. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the pump as its own line, so a lot with truck access pays for no hose.
Not for a patio, a walk or a slab inside your own lot. The alley apron, the parkway walk and anything at the curb are city right-of-way and take an encroachment permit from the Community Development Department at the Civic Center, and a slab that carries a room or a wall over 4 feet takes a building permit. A lot in the coastal zone is checked under the city's coastal program first.
Next door. Our office is on Newport Boulevard, the road that runs onto the Peninsula, and the city line is a few blocks south of it, so a crew is on Lido Isle in 10 minutes and in Corona del Mar in 20. That is close enough that a visit is booked for this week, the pump and the mixer are timed to the minute, and we come back the same afternoon to cut the joints and cover the slab.
The sand does and the salt mostly does not. Beach sand drains and never swells, but loose it settles under a slab, so it is plate-compacted and 4 inches of rock goes on it before the pour. Salt air does nothing to cured concrete. It reaches the steel through any crack, so on the flats the bars get 3 inches of cover, the joints are cut on the day so cracks land in them, and a garage floor gets a barrier.
The alley for a morning, the slab for about 10 days. Demolition and haul-away take a day, the base and the forms a day, and the pour is booked as one morning with the pump so the alley is open again by afternoon. Then the concrete takes foot traffic after 24 hours and a car after 7 days, and on the flats we keep it damp under a sheet for that week, though the marine layer does most of that for us.
Laguna Beach down Coast Highway, and Fountain Valley and Seal Beach up the 405, with Costa Mesa itself as the home town. Each has its own page, since a Laguna Beach job is on a hillside and a Fountain Valley one is on a flat 1960s tract, and neither is pumped down an alley the way a Peninsula job is. Newport Coast is covered as part of Newport Beach.
Newport Beach shares its northern line with Costa Mesa, where we are based, and its southern one with Laguna Beach, which we also cover. Fountain Valley is 15 minutes up the 405. Each has its own page, because the lots and the permit rules 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 and the written estimate cost nothing, we are 10 minutes away, and the work is guaranteed in writing.