Harbor Fullerton Concrete is 10 minutes from Buena Park, west along Orangethorpe Avenue from our Harbor Boulevard yard. Every estimate is measured and written on site, by the crew that pours.
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Buena Park is flat farm ground on the Coyote Creek plain, and the tracts of the 1950s were poured on it with nothing under the slab. Sixty years on, the ground has not changed but the slabs have.
The plain is silt and fine sand laid down by Coyote Creek and Fullerton Creek, both now in concrete channels, which is why the town floods less than it did and drains no faster. Water off a roof or a lawn sits in the top foot for days after a storm, and the ground under a slab edge softens while the ground under its middle does not. A slab with no base rides that difference every winter, and one with no bar in it breaks along it. The drives south of the 91 off Knott Avenue show it first.
So the specification in Buena Park is the one we use for old ground. The old slab and the soft foot under it come out, the subgrade is compacted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted before a form goes up. The slab is 4 inches, 5 where a vehicle stands, with number 3 bar on an 18-inch grid so a crack that starts cannot open. Joints are sawn the same day at 10 feet, and the drive falls to the street and never toward the garage.
Buena Park was the first big postwar tract town in north Orange County, and its concrete is now the oldest we replace. Below is what those 1950s lots need, in the order the calls come in, from the drive that broke up first to the garage floor.
Most Buena Park drives are 1950s slabs poured on bare ground, and they come out in pieces the size of a plate. We break them out, compact the silt, lay 4 inches of base and pour a new 4 inch drive with a 5 inch apron, drawn for the city first if the width at the curb changes.
A Buena Park patio is usually the builder's 8 foot slab being made into a yard that gets used. We take the old slab out rather than build on it, pour 4 inches on compacted base jointed at 10 feet, dowel it to the house slab so the two move together, and fall it from the door.
Stamped concrete in Buena Park is the front walk and porch, where owners want the entry to read as stone without the joints a paver needs. We cast an ashlar or a flagstone pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through the mix rather than on the surface, and seal it in two coats.
Buena Park walks sit in the city parkway, lifted by 60 years of tree roots and softened ground. We pull the encroachment permit, saw the bad panels out at the joints, grind the root and pour new panels at the city's 4 inch section, doweled to the old so no lip forms at the seam.
The 1950s garage floors in Buena Park are thin, cracked and often a step below the apron. We break the old floor out, lay base and a 10 mil vapor barrier, and pour 5 inches with bar in it, brought up level with the drive and troweled flat enough to take an epoxy once dry.
Exposed aggregate is what we pour on Buena Park patios and pool surrounds when the owner wants something cooler and less plain than a broom finish. We seed the river stone into the top of a 4 inch slab, wash the paste off it at the right hour, and edge it with a smooth band.
Buena Park is flat except at its north edge, so most walls here hold a planter or a graded step between two lots. Toward the Coyote Hills they hold a slope. Either way the footing goes 18 inches into compacted ground, the bar ties into the stem, and drain rock sits behind it.
Garage conversions and additions in Buena Park need an interior slab that stays dry on ground that holds water. We pour on 4 inches of base over a 10 mil barrier lapped at every seam, match the height of the house slab, and trowel it flat enough for tile or a floating floor.
Buena Park is our next-door town. The city line with Fullerton runs north to south a few miles west of our yard, and Orangethorpe Avenue, Commonwealth Avenue and Malvern Avenue all cross it without changing name, so a Buena Park job is a shorter drive than some streets in Fullerton. The city incorporated in 1953 as the tracts went in and grew to 83,000 people, more than half of them owners, mostly in single-story ranch houses from before 1970.
Permits go to the City of Buena Park Building Division at City Hall on Beach Boulevard, and a new approach, curb cut or public walk is an encroachment permit through Public Works in the same building. The city checks the width of a widened drive at the curb, so we draw it before we cut. North of Rosecrans Avenue, around Los Coyotes Country Club and Ralph B. Clark Regional Park, the ground rises toward the Coyote Hills and the lots are larger, which changes the access but not the base.
Two freeways cross in Buena Park, the 5 and the 91, and Beach Boulevard carries the Knott's traffic between them, so we route the mixer along La Palma Avenue or Orangethorpe and book pours for the first slot of the morning. Most of our Buena Park work is on the grid between La Palma Avenue and Orangethorpe, off Stanton Avenue and Dale Street, where the 1950s drives are cracked into a dozen pieces and the garage floors sit a step below the apron that dropped in front of them.
Four stages with the same three people on every one of them. Because Buena Park is next door, the estimate visit is usually the day after you call, and the crew is home before the freeway fills.
Grant Yoshida measures each slab, checks the fall to the street, lifts a corner of the old drive to see the ground and writes the figure there.
The 1950s slab comes out in pieces and is hauled, the silt is compacted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted flat.
Where the job needs one we file at City Hall on Beach Boulevard, pull the encroachment permit for the curb, and book the inspection.
The truck comes in on La Palma Avenue at first light, the joints are sawn by afternoon, and the slab takes feet at 24 hours and cars at 7 days.
Ring or send the form and we will call back within 1 business day to book a visit. We come out from Fullerton, measure every slab, lift a corner of the old drive to see what it sat on, and write the figure before we go.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook across the towns we cover, Buena Park among them. The drives and patios behind them are the specification on this page, poured a few miles from home.
“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 Buena Park owners ask us before booking, from what the city will want to see and what moves the figure on a 1950s lot to how long the drive is out and how far the crew is coming.
How much old concrete has to come out, then the area of the new. Every Buena Park job starts with a 1950s slab to break and haul. After that it is square footage, the thickness where a vehicle stands, and whether a curb cut is moving. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with one corner of the old slab lifted first so what is under it is known.
Not for a drive or a patio at grade inside your own lot. You do for a wall over 4 feet, a footing for a patio cover, any interior slab, and for anything that touches the public walk or the curb, which is an encroachment permit. All of it goes to the City of Buena Park at City Hall on Beach Boulevard, the Building Division for the first three and Public Works for the curb, and we file it and meet the inspector.
Silt and fine sand, flat, and slow to drain. The plain between Coyote Creek and Fullerton Creek was farmland because it held water, and it still holds it in the top foot for days after rain. That is why a slab here needs a compacted base under it and steel through it, and why we set the grade so water leaves the slab rather than sitting at its edge. North of Rosecrans Avenue the ground rises and firms.
Ten minutes. Our yard is on Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton and Buena Park is the next city west, along Orangethorpe Avenue or Commonwealth Avenue without touching a freeway. That is why the estimate visit in Buena Park is usually the day after you call, and why a pour here is booked early, with the truck coming in on La Palma Avenue before the Knott's traffic builds on Beach Boulevard.
About 10 days end to end. The old drive comes out on the first day, base and forms go in on the second, the pour is the third morning, and then the slab needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before you drive on it. You park on the street for that week, and we set the forms so the walk to the front door stays open the whole time.
All of them. La Palma and Cypress to the south, Stanton to the south-east, La Mirada to the north, and Cerritos and Artesia across Coyote Creek in Los Angeles County, along with Fullerton itself, where the yard is. If your street is on the La Palma or Cypress line, the page for that town says what changes there, and the crew and the base do not.
Buena Park touches Fullerton, La Palma, Cypress, Stanton and La Mirada, and Cerritos is over Coyote Creek on its west side. We cover every one of them from the yard on Harbor Boulevard, and each has its own page because the ground changes at the line.
Open the Fullerton Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day to book the measure. It is free and written at your house, and carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.