Harbor Fullerton Concrete replaces drives, walks and patios in La Habra, one town north of our yard on Harbor Boulevard. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the visit is free.
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La Habra planted its streets in the 1950s, and the trees won. A ficus or a camphor set in a 4 foot parkway then has roots under the walk, the approach and the first panel of the drive now.
A root grows in diameter every year and a slab does not, so the panel above it rises a fraction each season until the joint against its neighbor is a step. The city's fix for a walk it owns is to grind the lip. The fix on your side of the property line, the approach and the drive, is to take the panel out, cut the root back only where the arborist allows it, and set a thicker panel over a bridge of base that lets the root keep growing without carrying the concrete on its back.
So a drive in La Habra is measured with the tree in the picture. We probe under the lifted panel to find the root, note its size on the estimate, and pour the replacement 5 inches thick on that run rather than 4, with number 3 steel on an 18 inch grid so the panel spans the root instead of resting on it. The joints are cut within 12 hours on the same lines as the old ones, because a root will crack a slab exactly where a joint is not.
La Habra was built out between the walnut groves and the foot of the Puente Hills in the twenty years after the war, and its concrete is that age now. Most of our work here is taking out a slab that did sixty years and pouring one for forty.
Drives in La Habra were poured for one car in the 1950s, and the second car parks on the lawn. We widen the approach through the city's encroachment permit, take the parkway root into account, and pour the new width 4 inches thick on compacted base, doweled into what stays.
A La Habra patio is usually the second one on the lot, replacing the builder's 10 foot slab that has since cracked into thirds. We break the old one out rather than topping it, because a new slab over a moving one moves with it, and pour 4 inches jointed on a 10 foot grid.
Stamped work in La Habra is mostly the front, the walk from the drive to the door, because that is the part of the lot the street sees. We cast a flagstone or ashlar pattern into a 4 inch slab, seal it in 2 coats, and reseal it when the sun has dulled the first ones.
A La Habra walk lifted by a parkway tree is the job we see most on the older streets. We take out the raised panels, bridge the root with base where the city arborist lets it stay, and pour a thicker panel with steel through it, so the walk stays level longer than a grind does.
Garage floors on the 1950s tracts of La Habra were poured thin and never sealed, and 60 years of oil and the odd lifted corner are in them now. We break out the failed slab, lay 4 inches of base, and pour a new floor 4 inches thick, flat enough to coat and pitched to the door.
Exposed aggregate suits the front walks and courtyards of La Habra, because the stone hides the dust the Santa Ana winds bring down off the hills and the finish does not go slick in winter rain. We wash the aggregate proud the same afternoon and seal it once it has cured.
The hill streets north of Whittier Boulevard are where the walls go in La Habra, holding a level pad at the back of a lot that falls to the street. We pour the footing into firm ground below the fill, drain the wall behind its stem, and permit anything over 4 feet with the city.
Garage conversions and ADUs are the interior slabs in La Habra, on lots deep enough for a second unit at the back. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel the floor flat enough for tile or plank, and cut the joints on a grid the room's walls will hide.
Our yard is in Fullerton, and Harbor Boulevard runs straight from it into La Habra with no freeway in between, so a crew is on a La Habra street in a quarter of an hour in any traffic. Plans go to the City of La Habra Building Division at City Hall on La Habra Boulevard, and work that touches the approach, the curb or the walk in the parkway also needs an encroachment permit from the city's Public Works Department. We file both and meet the inspector.
The old core of La Habra sits around Euclid Street and La Habra Boulevard, where the railroad depot that is now the children's museum still stands, and the lots there carry drives poured for one car before the war. The tracts either side of Idaho Street and out to Beach Boulevard went up in the 1950s and 1960s on 6,000 and 7,000 square foot lots, and that is where most of the drive and patio work is. North of Whittier Boulevard the streets begin to climb toward the Puente Hills.
The ground is the same alluvial soil we work in Fullerton, sandy at the top and tighter a foot down, and it drains south and west off the hills. The hillside streets north of Whittier Boulevard are the exception, where the fan off the Puente Hills is coarser and the fall across a lot can be 3 feet from the back fence to the street. We pour year round. Winter work waits out the rain by the day, and from July to September the first load arrives at 6 in the morning.
One crew, four stages, and one written figure that does not change between the visit and the pour. On a street with a parkway tree, the root survey comes before anything is agreed, because that is what decides the thickness.
Grant Yoshida measures the slab, finds the fall to the street, probes beside any lifted panel for the root, and writes the figure at the curb.
We file with the La Habra Building Division and, where the approach or the parkway is touched, with Public Works. You never visit the counter.
The old slab is sawn and taken out, roots are cut or bridged as the arborist allows, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate compacted.
Most La Habra jobs pour in a morning. The joints are cut the same day, you walk on the slab after 24 hours and park on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day with a time for the visit. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and since La Habra is the closest town to our yard, the visit is usually inside the week.
Reviews
Our reviews are left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across north Orange County, La Habra among them. They are about the same drives, walks and patios this page describes.
“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.”
What people in La Habra ask before they book, on what moves the estimate, which permits a drive or a walk needs, how far we come, the parkway trees, and how long the slab is out of use.
The tree, before anything else. A drive with a parkway root under its first panel takes a root survey, an extra inch of thickness on that run and sometimes a day waiting on the city arborist, and none of that shows on a drive two doors down. After the tree it is area, then how much old slab has to be hauled. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the figure on the sheet is the one on the invoice.
A building permit from the City of La Habra Building Division for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, and any slab a structure sits on. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs none. The approach, the curb and the walk in the parkway are public right of way, so the city's Public Works Department issues an encroachment permit for those. We apply for whichever the job needs.
One town. Harbor Boulevard leaves our yard in Fullerton and crosses into La Habra with no freeway or hill in between, so a crew is on site in about a quarter of an hour and a forgotten tool is not a lost afternoon. It is why La Habra jobs are booked into the week rather than the month, and why we come back the same day to cut the joints on a slab poured that morning.
Not over it, and not by cutting it out either. A root more than 2 inches across is cut only where the city arborist allows, because a ficus that loses its anchor roots leans. Everywhere else we lift the grade, bridge the root with compacted base and thicken the panel to 5 inches with steel through it, so the root has room to grow under a slab that spans it.
About a week. Break out and base take a day, the pour takes a morning, and the slab needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes back on it, so the car sleeps on the street for that week. A patio is the same 24 hours to walk on and back in use sooner, because nothing heavy goes on it.
Yes, and it is the fall that changes. North of Whittier Boulevard a lot can drop 3 feet from the back fence to the street, so a patio there is stepped in two pours or cut into the slope behind a short wall, and a drive is pitched to carry water past the garage rather than into it. On the flat tracts around Idaho Street the same jobs are one pour and one level.
La Habra touches Fullerton, Brea, La Mirada, Whittier and La Habra Heights, and every one of them is a page on this site, served from the same yard. If your street runs along a city line, read the page for the side your house is on.
Open the Fullerton Office in Google Maps Send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. The estimate is written at the curb, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.