Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete pours drives, patios and footings in Seal Beach, 15 miles up Pacific Coast Highway. In Old Town the garage faces the alley, so that is where the mixer stands.
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An Old Town lot in Seal Beach can be 25 feet wide, with the street at the front and an alley at the back, and the garage, the trash cans and the meters sit on the alley. It is the side a truck serves.
A mixer parks in the alley and chutes the garage slab and the apron straight from the drum, and everything forward of the house travels by pump line or wheelbarrow along a side yard that is a path between two walls. That sets the order of the day. The back is poured first while the alley is closed, the front from the same load through the line, and the finisher works forward so nobody crosses the fresh apron. The alley is coned the evening before and every door on it gets a note.
The ground is beach sand, and a few feet down it is damp. Sand carries a slab once compacted, so the subgrade is plate-compacted, 4 inches of gravel goes over it, and the slab is poured 4 inches for a patio and 5 for a garage. A footing for a second story or a courtyard wall is dug to firm sand and poured the day it is dug, because an open hole this near the water table is wet by morning. Every outdoor slab is sealed, since salt air and the morning damp wet it most days.
Seal Beach is a beach town of small lots, so the work is measured in feet rather than yards. A garage apron on the alley, a courtyard patio, a walk to a front gate, a footing for a second story, each poured where a mixer cannot back in.
Old Town drives are short aprons off the alley, so the job is an apron and a garage slab together, chuted from the mixer standing in the lane. In College Park the drive runs to the street and is poured 4 inches on gravel with a 5 inch apron at the curb.
A Seal Beach patio is a courtyard, walled on three sides and reached through the house or a side gate, so the concrete is pumped in. We pour 4 inches on compacted sand and gravel, pitch it to a drain, and seal it, because the salt damp sits on a slab here every morning.
Stamped work in Seal Beach is asked for on the courtyard and the walk to the front gate, where it is seen from the street. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it integrally so the beach sun cannot fade a surface stain, and seal it in 2 coats.
The public walk in Old Town is the City's, and a broken panel in front of your house needs an encroachment permit before it is cut. We file it, dowel the new panel into its neighbors and pour it to the City's standard so the inspector passes it first time.
An Old Town garage sits on the alley and its slab is the one job the mixer chutes direct. We break out the old floor, compact the sand, lay gravel and a vapor barrier, and pour 5 inches with a thickened edge at the alley door, where a car turns in every day.
Exposed aggregate suits a beach lot, because the stone hides the sand that is walked onto every slab. We wash the top of a 4 inch pour to show the aggregate, band it with a smooth border, and seal it so the finish stays clean under the salt air.
A wall in Seal Beach is a low courtyard wall or a planter on Marina Hill, footed into firm sand and drained behind the stem. Anything over 4 feet is permitted by the City of Seal Beach and inspected before the pour, and the footing is poured the day it is dug.
An interior floor in Seal Beach goes over a vapor barrier without exception, because the sand under Old Town is damp a few feet down and a polished slab shows every stain water leaves. We pour it flat, grind and polish it, and seal it against the salt walked in.
Pacific Coast Highway runs from our door on Newport Boulevard in Costa Mesa through Newport Beach and Huntington Beach to Seal Beach, about 15 miles and half an hour, and the 405 to Seal Beach Boulevard is the way in when the coast is slow. Permits come from the City of Seal Beach building division at City Hall on Eighth Street for a garage slab, a footing or a wall over 4 feet. Flatwork at grade needs none. The highway is State Route 1, so a drive onto it is Caltrans too.
The parts of Seal Beach are different jobs. Old Town, between the pier and Electric Avenue, is the alley work above. Surfside is a gated colony of narrow lots on the sand off the highway, reached through one gate with the guard told the day before. Leisure World is a gated community of the 1960s where much of the concrete belongs to the community rather than the resident, so we ask what is yours before we quote. College Park East and West are 1960s tracts with drives to the street.
The water table is the fact under the whole town. Old Town sits a few feet above the tide between the beach and the San Gabriel River, and a hole dug for a footing meets damp sand before anything firm, so footings are dug, inspected and poured within the day, and a slab that will carry a room gets a vapor barrier. The greenbelt down Electric Avenue is the old Pacific Electric right-of-way, and it is why every block beside it has a house on the street and a garage on the alley.
Four stages, with the alley and the side yard settled at the first. The visit fixes where the mixer stands and how the concrete travels to the far side of the house, and the written estimate is handed over at the property before we leave.
Julian Mercado measures, digs a test hole in the sand, walks the alley and the side yard and writes the estimate at the property before he goes.
The old slab is broken and carried out the way the concrete will come in, the sand is plate-compacted and 4 inches of gravel goes down.
We file with the City of Seal Beach for a garage slab, a footing or a wall, and cone the alley the evening before the pour so it stays clear.
One load, the back poured first and the front through the line. Walk on it after 24 hours and drive on the apron after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day to set the visit. It is free, Julian Mercado measures and writes the estimate at the property, and the alley and the side yard are walked before a figure is put on paper.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by owners across the coast and inland towns we work in. Seal Beach is one of them, and the jobs described are the ones set out above.
“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 a Seal Beach owner asks before booking. What moves the estimate on a small lot, whose permit is whose, how far we come, the sand and the water table, how long the alley is closed, and what nearby we cover.
How the concrete gets to the slab, before how much of it there is. On an Old Town lot the garage and the apron are chuted from the alley, and a front patio is pumped or wheeled along a side yard one wheelbarrow wide, which adds crew hours to the same square footage. Demolition, the base and the finish move it after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the access measured beside the slab.
Not for a patio, a walk or a drive at grade inside your own lot. A garage slab, a footing under a room or a cover, a wall over 4 feet and any work in the parkway or the public walk are permitted by the City of Seal Beach building division at City Hall on Eighth Street. A drive that opens onto Pacific Coast Highway also needs Caltrans, since the highway is State Route 1. We file each and meet the inspector.
About 15 miles up Pacific Coast Highway, or the 405 to Seal Beach Boulevard when the coast road is slow, so a crew is on an Old Town alley about half an hour after leaving Newport Boulevard. Seal Beach is the north end of the coast we cover, and we book it as a whole day, because a job here is planned around the alley and not around the drive back.
Yes. Beach sand does not swell, but loose sand settles under a wheel, so the subgrade is plate-compacted and 4 inches of gravel is compacted over it before the forms go up. Below Old Town the sand is damp within a few feet, which is why a footing is dug and poured in one day and any slab with a room over it gets a vapor barrier. Steel on an 18-inch grid goes through every slab we pour here.
One morning for the pour, and the demolition day before it. We cone the alley the evening before, the mixer stands in it for about 2 hours, and it is open again once the chute is washed down. Then the slab needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on the apron, and we say so at the visit so the car has somewhere else to be for the week.
Los Alamitos, Westminster, Cypress and Hawaiian Gardens, which is over the Los Angeles County line, along with Newport Beach on the coast south of us. Seal Beach is the farthest of these up the coast and each town has its own page, since a tract drive in Cypress is not planned the way an Old Town alley is, and the page says how.
Seal Beach borders Los Alamitos and Westminster, with Cypress and Hawaiian Gardens a few minutes up Seal Beach Boulevard and the 605, and we cover each from the same office. If your address sits on a city boundary, call and we will say which page is yours.
Open the Costa Mesa Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is measured and written at the property, free, and the work carries a written guarantee.