Harbor Fullerton Concrete replaces driveways, walks and patios in La Mirada, west of our yard along Imperial Highway. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the visit is free.
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Almost every house in La Mirada was built between 1953 and the city's incorporation in 1960, on what had been the McNally olive ranch. The drive in front of it was poured the same month.
A tract drive of that decade was 4 inches thick, poured with no steel straight onto a pad the grader had just finished, and it has now carried 70 years of cars. The failure is the same on every block. The panel nearest the street tips toward the gutter where the parkway has been watered for decades, the joint at the garage opens into a lip, and the walk between them cracks at the porch step. Built alike, they fail alike, and a street with one replaced drive soon has five.
So the job in La Mirada is a full replacement done right the second time. The old drive, the walk and the apron come out together, because a new drive doweled to a cracked walk fails at the dowel. The top foot of watered soil comes out of the parkway edge, 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and compacted, and the new slab goes down 4 inches thick with number 3 steel on an 18 inch grid. The joints are cut within 12 hours, on the lines the neighbors' drives share.
La Mirada went from olive ranch to city in about ten years, and the concrete went in with the houses. So the drives, walks and porches here are one age, failing together, and the work is replacement done street by street.
A La Mirada driveway is a 1950s single width slab that now carries 2 cars, and it is replaced rather than patched. We take out the drive and the apron together, widen the approach under the city's encroachment permit, and pour 4 inches on compacted base with steel through it.
Patios in La Mirada replace the builder's small slab at the sliding door, or extend it across a yard that was lawn for 60 years. We break out the old piece rather than pouring over it, lay base, and pour 4 inches jointed on a 10 foot grid, doweled to the house slab.
Stamped work here goes on the walk and the porch at the front of a ranch house, where the street sees it. We cast a flagstone or brick pattern into a 4 inch slab, keep the drive plain for grip, and seal the stamp in 2 coats, because a La Mirada front yard faces the sun all day.
The walk from the drive to the porch in La Mirada cracks at the step, because the porch was poured on a footing and the walk was not. We replace the walk in short panels on compacted base, dowel it to the porch so the joint stays flush, and match the neighbors' broom finish.
A La Mirada garage floor from the 1950s is thin, unsealed and cracked at the door line where 70 years of cars have crossed it. We break it out, lay 4 inches of base, and pour a new 4 inch floor pitched to the door and troweled flat enough to coat without a grinder first.
Exposed aggregate is the finish some La Mirada blocks were built with, and a replacement drive on one of them should match. We pour with a matching pebble, wash the stone proud the same afternoon and seal it once cured, so the new slab sits beside a 1960s original unnoticed.
Walls in La Mirada are short, because the city is flat, and they hold a raised bed or a level pad against a neighbor's grade. We pour the footing into firm ground below the topsoil, drain behind the stem, and permit anything over 4 feet with the city's Building Division first.
Interior slabs in La Mirada are for the garage conversion and the backyard unit a 7,000 square foot lot has room for. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel the floor flat enough for tile or plank, and cut the joints where the finished walls will hide them.
Imperial Highway leaves the north edge of Fullerton, crosses La Habra, and runs straight into La Mirada with no freeway between, so a crew is on site in about 20 minutes with the mixer a few minutes behind. Plans go to the City of La Mirada Building Division at City Hall on La Mirada Boulevard, and any work in the parkway, the approach or the public walk takes an encroachment permit from the city's Public Works Department. We file both and meet the inspector on the day.
The tracts either side of La Mirada Boulevard and Santa Gertrudes Avenue are the heart of the city, single story ranch houses on 6,000 to 7,000 square foot lots with the garage at the front and a drive of 20 feet from the walk to the door. Toward Valley View Avenue and the Santa Ana Freeway the lots run smaller and the streets busier, and off Rosecrans Avenue near Biola University the houses are a decade newer, with the two story plans and the wider drives of the 1970s.
The ground under La Mirada is flat ranch alluvium, sandy loam that drains well and holds a grade, which is why the old slabs lasted as long as they did with nothing under them. What moves them is the water at the edges, the parkway sprinkler and the roof downspout, so a new drive here gets its base carried a foot past the slab edge and its fall set toward the gutter. We pour all year. Winter work waits out the rain by the day, and summer pours start at 6 in the morning.
One crew, four stages, one figure written before the work is agreed. A full drive and walk replacement on a tract lot is a known job here, so the days are set at the visit and kept.
Grant Yoshida measures the drive, the walk and the apron, checks the fall to the gutter, and writes the figure at your curb before he leaves.
We file the plan with the La Mirada Building Division and the encroachment permit with Public Works for the apron. Nothing for you to fetch.
Drive, walk and apron are sawn and hauled in a day, the watered edge soil is dug out, and 4 inches of base is laid and plate compacted.
The pour takes a morning, the joints are cut that 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 if a neighbor on the block wants the same job the same week, say so, since one mobilisation serves both.
Reviews
Our reviews are left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across north Orange County and the towns over the county line, La Mirada among them, about the drives and walks 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 Mirada ask before they book, covering what drives the estimate on a tract lot, whose permits the job needs, how quickly we get here, the ranch soil, timing, and matching the drive next door.
How much comes out. On a 1950s tract lot the drive, the walk and the apron are usually the same age and all failing, and hauling a front yard of old concrete is the biggest line on the sheet. After that it is area, then whether the apron is in, because the apron needs a city permit and a second inspection. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the sheet lists each piece so you can leave one out.
Not for the drive on your own lot, but yes for the apron. The approach between the walk and the gutter is public right of way, and the City of La Mirada Public Works Department issues an encroachment permit for it. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a patio cover and any slab a structure sits on need a building permit from the city's Building Division at City Hall. We file whichever the job needs.
About 20 minutes, along Imperial Highway. There is no freeway between our yard and La Mirada, which matters more than the distance, since a mixer with a full drum does not want to sit in traffic on the Santa Ana Freeway. It is why La Mirada jobs go into the calendar as a known day rather than a window, and why the crew that cut the joints in the morning is back to check them before dark.
Flat ranch alluvium, a sandy loam that drains and holds a grade. It is good ground for a slab, and the reason the 1950s drives lasted 70 years with no base under them. Where it fails is where it has been kept wet, at the parkway edge and under a downspout, so we dig out the top foot along those edges and replace it with compacted base before the pour. Away from the water it is left alone.
A week, counted from the pour. Break out and base take one day, the pour a morning, then the slab needs 24 hours before anyone walks on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. Park on the street for that week, and if the apron is in the job the inspector sees it before the pour, which is fitted into the same days. A patio out back is back in use after the 24 hours.
Yes, and on a tract street it is worth doing. Most 1950s La Mirada drives are a medium broom with the joints on a 10 foot grid, and some blocks were done in exposed aggregate. We match the broom direction, the joint spacing and the color of the aggregate where that is the finish, so the new drive reads as part of the street rather than the one that was replaced.
La Mirada touches Buena Park and La Habra on the Orange County side, and Santa Fe Springs, Whittier and Cerritos on the Los Angeles County side, and each has a page here. If your street sits on a city line, the page for your side names the permit desk.
Open the Fullerton Office in Google Maps Send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. The estimate is written at your curb, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.