Harbor Fullerton Concrete works in Brea from a yard 6 miles south on Harbor Boulevard, which turns into Brea Boulevard. Every estimate is measured and written on site, bungalow or hill pad.
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In Brea the year a house was built tells us what is under its slab before we lift it. Three eras of building sit on three kinds of ground, and the specification follows the era, not the address.
The bungalows around Brea Boulevard and Birch Street went up for oil workers in the 1920s on the alluvium of Brea Creek, sandy loam that drains and holds a slab well, so their drives failed from age and thinness rather than the ground. The tracts of the 1960s and 1970s south of Imperial Highway sit on firmer loam, and their slabs went down with no base and no bar. The hill tracts north of Lambert Road were graded from the ridges, and a yard there is cut on one side and fill on the other.
So a downtown drive is replaced at 4 inches with steel on an 18-inch grid over 4 inches of compacted base, thicker than what came out and on a base it never had. A 1960s tract slab gets the same, with the parkway tree's root cut back where it lifted the walk. On a hill lot we probe for the line between cut and fill first, because a slab that spans it settles on the fill side, so the edge is thickened and the steel runs through the join. In the fall the slab is covered against the wind.
Brea has an oil town from the 1920s at its center, tracts from the 1960s around it and hill neighborhoods from the 2000s above, and each asks for different work. The eight jobs below are written for all three, bungalow drive to hill pad.
A Brea drive is a 1920s ribbon downtown, a 1960s slab in the tracts or a builder's apron on a hill pad, and the first is usually widened as it is replaced. All three go back on 4 inches of compacted base, 4 inches thick with a 5 inch apron, and the hill one gets a thickened edge.
Brea patios on the flats replace a builder's slab poured thin on bare loam. On the hill tracts the patio is often the first slab a back yard has had, on fill that settled after the pad was cut. Either way it goes on compacted base at 4 inches, jointed at 10 feet.
Stamped work in Brea is asked for on the hill tracts, where the builders laid pavers at the front and owners want the back to match without the sand joints. We cast an ashlar or a slate pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through the mix, and seal it twice against the sun.
The public walks in Brea's 1960s and 1970s tracts have been lifted by the street trees planted with them. We pull the encroachment permit, saw the lifted panels out at their joints, cut the root back with the tree kept, and pour new panels doweled to the old at the city section.
A Brea garage floor from before 1980 is thin, cracked and often lower than the drive in front of it. We break it out, lay base and a 10 mil vapor barrier, pour 5 inches with steel in it, bring it level with the apron, and trowel it flat enough for a coating once it has dried.
Exposed aggregate suits the Brea bungalow streets, where a plain gray drive reads too new beside a 1920s porch, and it stays cooler on a hill patio in full sun. We seed river stone into a 4 inch slab, wash the paste off at the right hour, and border it with a smooth band.
Retaining walls are the job the Brea hills ask for most, because a graded pad leaves a bank at the back fence that a timber wall held for 20 years. We pour on a footing 18 inches into firm ground below the fill, tie the bar into the stem, and drain the back with rock and a pipe.
Additions and garage conversions in Brea need an interior slab that matches the house slab whatever its era. We pour on 4 inches of base over a 10 mil barrier lapped and taped, dowel into the original so the two do not step at the door, and trowel it flat for tile or wood.
The creek that drains Brea flows south-west through the middle of the city and into the Brea Dam basin in Fullerton, the flood-control reservoir behind the golf course on Harbor Boulevard, 4 miles up the road from our yard. So we know the Brea flats from below as well as above, and we drive up through the basin to get there. Building and Safety is at the Civic and Cultural Center off Birch Street, and an approach or a public walk is an encroachment permit through Public Works.
Downtown Brea was rebuilt around Birch Street in the 1990s, but the streets of bungalows behind it are original, and their drives are the narrow ribbon kind from before two-car households, so a downtown job is usually a widening too. East along Imperial Highway, the Brea Mall and the tracts around it date from the 1970s, and the walks there are lifted by the street trees. Olinda Village up Carbon Canyon Road is 1960s canyon housing, and Olinda Ranch and Blackstone are the new pads.
Brea sits at the mouth of Carbon Canyon and Brea Canyon, which is where the Santa Ana winds come into north Orange County each fall, and a wind of that kind pulls the water out of a fresh slab faster than the concrete can set. From September to December we pour in Brea before 8 in the morning, keep an evaporation retarder on the truck, and cover every slab with wet burlap or curing compound the same afternoon. The rest of the year a Brea job runs as it does at home.
Four stages, the same crew on all of them, and the figure written at your house. On a Brea hill lot the first stage takes an hour longer than usual, because the line between cut and fill has to be found before it can be priced.
Grant Yoshida measures the slabs, probes the ground at the low corner and, downtown, draws the widened drive for the city.
The old slab comes out, soft fill or root is dug, the subgrade is compacted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted flat.
We file at the Civic and Cultural Center where the job needs it, pull the encroachment permit for the curb, and book the inspection.
Poured before 8 in the fall wind season, joints sawn by afternoon, covered the same day, feet at 24 hours and cars at 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will ring back within 1 business day to set a time. We drive up Harbor Boulevard, measure every slab, probe the ground at the low corner, and write the figure at your house before we leave for the yard.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, Brea among them. The slabs behind them went in on base with steel and were covered against the wind, as described above.
“Our drive had dropped at the apron and split right across. Grant dug a hole before he wrote anything and showed me the clay sitting eight inches down. They took out 740 square feet, cut that clay back and poured five inches. He was here at half six on pour day.”
“The bank behind our garden had been creeping toward the house for years. They set a 34 foot wall four feet high, drained the back of it properly and got the encroachment paperwork through Engineering themselves. Two wet winters later and nothing has moved an inch.”
“Our 1958 garage floor was powdering every time the car came in and it was damp along the back wall. Out it came, a sheet went down over the base, and 420 square feet went back at five inches. It has stayed dry through two winters and I hose it off.”
Six things people in Brea ask before booking, from what moves the figure between a bungalow and a hill pad to which counter takes the permit, what the fall wind does to a pour, and how long a drive is closed.
Which Brea you are in. A downtown bungalow drive is small but is being widened as well as replaced, so the curb cut and the drawing for the city are part of the job. A 1960s tract slab is mostly break-out and haul. A hill pad may need the fill probed and an edge thickened over it. After that it is square footage and thickness, and the figure is written at your house off a tape, with the ground already probed.
The City of Brea's Building and Safety Division at the Civic and Cultural Center on Civic Center Circle. A drive or a patio at grade inside your own lot needs no building permit, but a wall over 4 feet, a footing for a patio cover and an interior slab do, and anything at the curb or on the public walk is an encroachment permit through Public Works. On the hill tracts we also submit to your association.
Yes, more than the heat does. The wind comes down Carbon Canyon and Brea Canyon in the fall and takes the water off the surface of a fresh slab before the concrete under it has set, which is what causes the fine map of surface cracks on drives poured in October. So from September to December we pour in Brea early, put an evaporation retarder on as we finish, and cover the slab the same afternoon.
Six miles and about 20 minutes, straight up Harbor Boulevard past the golf course and the Brea Dam basin, where the road becomes Brea Boulevard at the city line. We do not touch a freeway to get to downtown Brea, and for the hill tracts we go up the 57 to Lambert Road. We are in Brea most weeks, and when you call we ring back within 1 business day to book the visit.
Ten days from the first cut to the first car, and most of that is curing. The old drive comes out on day one, base and forms go in on day two, the pour is the third morning, and then the slab takes feet at 24 hours and wheels at 7 days. In the fall we add the cover for the wind, which does not add a day. You park on the street for the week, and the walk to the door stays open.
Yes, and La Habra, Fullerton and Diamond Bar too, all from the one yard on Harbor Boulevard. Each town has a page of its own because the ground and the housing change at the line, and Brea changes most within itself. If your street is on the Placentia or the La Habra line, that town's page says what changes there, and the crew and the base do not.
Brea touches Fullerton, Placentia, Yorba Linda and La Habra, and Diamond Bar is over the county line up the 57. We cover all of them from the yard on Harbor Boulevard, and each town has its own page because the ground and the housing change at the line.
Open the Fullerton Office in Google Maps Send the form and we ring back within 1 business day to book the visit. It is free, written at your house, and the job carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.