Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete pours pool decks that keep their footing on the gray mornings this coast gets from May to August, pitched off the coping and clear of the shell.
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How a deck is built here
A pool deck is a wet floor before it is anything else, and in Costa Mesa it is wet on more mornings than it is dry. The marine layer sits on the mesa most days from May into August and leaves a film on every slab it covers, so a deck that is smooth, or that holds a puddle at the coping, is the one surface in the yard a bare foot slides on. So the deck is broomed across the walk, pitched a quarter inch in every foot away from the water, and jointed so it moves without the shell.
Harbor Costa Mesa Concrete was founded in 2019 by Julian Mercado, and after 15 years on flatwork crews across coastal Orange County he is beside the pool for every pour. The pools here were dug behind ranch houses in Mesa Verde, College Park and the Eastside in the 1960s and 1970s, into yards drawn for a lawn, and the deck poured with them is now 50 years old. Troweled smooth and poured hard against the coping, it has settled into the backfill until it falls toward the water.
The deck is built to the California Residential Code under a CSLB C-8 concrete license, with liability insurance on every job. Any change to the fence, the gate or the deck's height against the barrier is checked against the California Swimming Pool Safety Act, and a deck poured as part of a pool remodel is inspected by the City of Costa Mesa under that permit. Every deck carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or replace
Algae that returns a week after it is scrubbed is growing on water the deck cannot shed. The slab has settled toward the pool, or its surface has worn smooth enough to hold a film, and the damp mornings do the rest. Pressure washing clears it for a fortnight and takes surface too.
The coping is bolted to the bond beam and does not move, so when the deck drops behind it a lip appears at the one edge everyone steps over wet. A quarter inch is enough to catch a toe. Grinding the lip flat only thins the slab where it is already tipping the wrong way.
A deck poured level in the 1960s and settled since now sends the splash and the hose water toward the slab of the house rather than the lawn. A damp line along the stucco at the base of the back wall is that water arriving, and it is the house slab paying for the deck's fall.
A crack that starts in the deck and finishes in the waterline tile means the deck was poured hard against the coping with no joint between them, and every inch it has moved has been pushed into the shell. That one decides replacement, because the next thing to crack is the bond beam.
In every deck
Eight things are in every pool deck we pour, at no separate line, and each answers what a wet floor beside a pool on this coast has to do: shed water it did not ask for, keep a bare foot upright, and move on the backfill without leaning on the shell.
The old slab is cut free of the coping and broken out to the backfill, with the coping and the tile line left standing and protected.
The band of fill around the shell is probed to the pipe trenches and plate compacted in layers, because that is where every old deck here sank.
Crushed rock compacted over the sand so the deck bears on a bed that drains, and the sand beneath is not carried off in water that gets through.
A quarter inch of fall in every foot from the coping outward, shot with a level before the forms are set, so splash leaves the deck, not the pool.
A foam expansion joint the full depth of the slab between deck and coping, sealed on top, so the deck moves on its own and never leans on the pool.
A medium broom finish pulled across the direction people walk, the texture that keeps a wet foot from sliding on a gray morning.
A channel or spot drain at the low side, piped to the lawn or the yard drain, so nothing runs against the house slab or stands at a wall.
We check the fall, the joint and the finish with you against the estimate, and the written guarantee is handed over before we leave the yard.
How it can be finished
Four ways to finish a deck beside a pool here, judged on what matters on a coast where the surface is wet most mornings for a quarter of the year. The base, the fall and the joint at the coping are the same under all four, so the table is only about the surface.
| Option | Grip when wet | Heat in the sun | Upkeep | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium broom finish | Most of the four, the texture is the grip | Warm by afternoon, pale gray helps | Hose down, no sealer | 48 hours on foot |
| Stamped and colored | Good with a gritted sealer only | Hot in a dark color, warm in a light | Reseal every 2 to 3 years | 48 hours, seal at 28 days |
| Exposed aggregate | Good, the stone is the texture | Warm, stone sheds heat by evening | Reseal every 2 to 3 years | 48 hours on foot |
| Salt finish deck | Fair, pits hold a film in the damp | Coolest of the four, most air in it | Hose down, sealer optional | 48 hours on foot |
Broom costs the least to lay and nothing to keep; stamped and exposed aggregate cost more to lay and want a gritted sealer every 2 to 3 years, as gloss is slick wet.
Damp and fill
The pool is the least of what a deck here has to answer to. The marine layer keeps the surface wet most mornings for four months a year, and the slab stands on the fill packed back around the shell.
Costa Mesa sits on a marine terrace a mile or two from the water, and from May into August the low cloud comes in overnight and often does not lift before noon. A deck under it is damp from sunset to midday, and the side in the shade of the block wall stays damp all day. That is a floor that grows a film, and a film on a smooth trowel finish is what people slip on. The open texture of a broom finish dries first and holds a wet foot, which is why it is the finish most decks here get.
The fill is the second. A pool shell is dug oversize and the gap round it filled back with what came out, and on a 1960s job that sand went in loose. The deck poured over it has been settling ever since, which is why decks here tip toward the water while the coping, bolted to the bond beam, stays put. With no joint between the two, the movement goes into the tile line. Where the deck meets a raised bed we build the retaining wall too.
From call to cure
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the person who probes the fill around the shell is the person on the float at the pour. The pool stays full the whole time and is covered from the first cut to the day the broom is drawn.
Julian Mercado measures the deck, shoots the fall from the coping out, and probes the fill along the shell. The figure is written before he leaves.
You pick the surface from the table above, set the width of the deck against the fence, and take a date. Any barrier change goes to the City first.
The slab is sawn off the coping, broken out and hauled, then the fill around the shell is compacted in layers until a plate stops sinking into it.
Gravel compacted, the joint set at the coping, forms fixed to the fall, then the pour placed and broomed across the walk before the cloud lifts.
Joints sawn the same afternoon, the slab kept damp for seven days, the cover off, the drain tested with a hose, and the paperwork handed to you.
Behind the number
The area starts the figure and the fill around the shell finishes it. Two decks measuring the same can be a day apart once the fill is probed, which is why nothing is quoted from a photograph. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A single deck round a kidney pool behind an Eastside or Mesa Verde house is mostly the break-out and the fill. The curves add forming.
A deck used by a whole building is wider, carries a drain run and a barrier check, and is poured in halves so the pool stays open to tenants.
Where the slab runs wall to wall there is nowhere for water to go but a drain, so the drain run and its outfall are measured as their own line.
A stamped or exposed aggregate surface adds a day of finishing and a gritted sealer at 28 days, both named on the estimate so you can weigh them.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call that books it comes within 1 business day. (949) 541-4812 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to fix a time. Julian Mercado measures the deck, probes the fill along the shell and writes the figure at the pool, and there is no pressure to sign on the day.
Decks we replaced
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a pool deck rather than a driveway or a patio, and each naming what the old deck did in the damp and what the new one does now.
“Our pool in Mesa Verde went in with the house in 1966 and the deck had tipped toward the water and gone green every June. They broke it out, packed the fill, poured it with a fall away from the coping and a broom finish. First gray summer since and it has not slimed once.”
“I manage a twelve-unit building off Harbor Boulevard and the pool deck had a lip at the coping a tenant caught her foot on. They poured it in two halves so the pool never closed, put a joint at the coping and a drain along the low side. The gate check passed first time.”
“The old deck behind our College Park house sent every splash at the back wall and the stucco was staining. Julian set the fall out from the pool, ran a channel drain to the side yard and left a broom finish. My kids run on it wet and nobody has gone over in a year.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how long the pool is covered, what the City checks, what is guaranteed and which sealer suits a wet deck, answered for a pool behind a house or an apartment court here.
The fill more than the area. The old deck comes out of every job and the square footage sets the concrete, but what the probe finds in the backfill around the shell sets how many layers have to be dug and compacted before the base goes in, and that can double the day. After that it is the finish, the drain run to an outfall, and how many curves the forms follow. Each is measured at the pool and written out.
About ten days from the first cut to bare feet. Two days to saw the deck free, break it out and compact the fill, a day for base, joint and forms, a morning for the pour and the broom, then 48 hours before anyone walks on it and seven days under a damp cure before furniture goes back. The pool stays full and covered throughout, and a shared pool is poured in halves so one side is always open.
Yes. Sawing the old slab free of the coping, breaking it out, hauling it and protecting the tile line while it happens are all in the figure, and so is compacting whatever the probe found in the fill. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit and never added later: a coping stone that breaks when the slab comes off it, a pool pipe found cracked under the deck, or a fence that has to move for the breaker.
The slab does not, but the fence might. A deck replaced at the same height inside your lot line is exempt flatwork under the California Residential Code. Raise it, move a gate or change anything the pool barrier depends on and it falls under the California Swimming Pool Safety Act, and a deck poured in a pool remodel is inspected by the City of Costa Mesa under that permit. We say at the visit which yours is.
Almost never. A deck that has sunk into the backfill over 50 years is wear and settlement, which every policy here treats as maintenance rather than a sudden loss, so the replacement is the owner's. The exception is damage from a covered event, a pipe under the deck bursting and washing the fill out, or a tree coming down on it. Photograph the deck before anything is cut, and ask your carrier before you book.
How it was built: the fill compacted, the base laid, the fall set off the coping, the joint between deck and shell, and the finish left on it, with those terms printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Algae on a shaded corner, a sealer wearing, and the shell itself moving sit outside it. A fault in the build is ours, and we come back.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix with fiber through it, poured 4 inches over 4 inches of compacted crushed rock, with a closed-cell foam joint at the coping and a polyurethane sealant over it. A broom finish takes no sealer. A stamped or exposed aggregate deck gets a penetrating sealer with grit in it at 28 days, because a gloss sealer beside a pool is a skating rink on a gray morning. Each product is named on the estimate.
Only for the measurement at the start and the walk-through at the end. Between them the crew needs a hose bib, a way to the back yard wide enough for a breaker and a barrow, and the pool cover left in place. Dogs stay in for the pour day. For an apartment pool we post the dates at the gate a week ahead and pour in halves, so the tenants keep one side and nobody has to be on site to let us in.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on Newport Boulevard beside each. Every deck is measured at the pool before a figure is written.
Four jobs that tend to be booked with a new pool deck or straight after it, in the same yard, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The dry patio between the house and the deck, poured to the same fall in the same week.
Exposed aggregate or a colored border where the deck meets the patio, sealed with grit.
A low poured wall holding a raised bed back off the deck so soil never washes onto it.
The side-yard walk from the gate to the pool, broomed and drained the same way.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say roughly how far the deck runs from the coping and whether it is a house pool or a shared one, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.