Harbor Fullerton Concrete pours for the houses of Old Town and the 1950s tracts off Katella Avenue, and for the managers who run the rented half of the city. Every job is measured first, free.
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Los Alamitos sits on the plain between the San Gabriel River and the coast, a few dozen feet above sea level, on ground that drains slowly and stays wet under a slab for months after the last rain.
A wet subgrade is the problem behind most of the failed concrete in the city. Base that holds water compacts poorly and moves as it wets and dries, a slab without a barrier under it draws moisture up into a garage or a room, and a patio poured flat on a flat lot ponds for a week after a storm because the ground beneath it is already full. None of that is dramatic ground movement. It is slow, seasonal and steady, and a 1950s slab poured on 2 inches of sand has had 70 years of it.
So the base is where the money goes on a Los Alamitos job. The subgrade is opened to firm ground and any saturated soil taken out, 6 inches of Class 2 base is laid and compacted in 2 lifts rather than one, and interior and garage slabs go over a 10 mil vapor barrier with the laps taped. Every exterior slab is set to fall a quarter inch per foot toward the gutter or a drain, and the joints are cut on a 10 foot grid the day of the pour so the slab cracks where we chose.
Los Alamitos is a small city with two kinds of client. Owners on the tract streets want a drive or a patio that will not hold water, and the managers of the apartments along Katella Avenue want a parking court done between tenants.
A Los Alamitos drive sits a few dozen feet above sea level on ground that stays damp well into spring, so the base under it matters more than the slab. We lay 6 inches of compacted base rather than 4, pour 4 inches with steel over it, and grade the whole run to the gutter.
Patios here are poured to move water first and hold furniture second, because a flat yard with a high water table has nowhere to send a winter storm. We set a fall of a quarter inch per foot away from the house, add a drain where the yard is walled, and joint it every 10 feet.
Stamped work in Los Alamitos is asked for in Old Town, where a 1920s house on a narrow lot wants a walk and a porch apron that look older than the concrete is. We stamp a running bond or a worn flagstone into a 4 inch slab, color it in the mix, and seal it in 2 coats.
The walks along Los Alamitos Boulevard and the streets behind it are the city's, and a lifted panel there goes to the city first. Private walks and the paths across an apartment court are ours, poured flush with the old panels and doweled so the joint never opens into a trip.
Garage floors in Los Alamitos sweat, because the ground under them holds water most of the year and a 1950s slab has no barrier beneath it. Where a floor is being coated we test it for moisture first, and where it is replaced we pour over a 10 mil barrier so the coat stays down.
A colored or exposed finish does more in Los Alamitos than inland, because the marine air keeps a plain gray slab damp and dark half the year. We use a light integral color with a salt or exposed aggregate finish, which reads clean when wet and hides the tide marks.
Los Alamitos is flat, so its retaining walls are short and their job is to hold soil out of the water's way. A wall on a lot here is footed 18 inches down, drained behind the stem into a pipe with somewhere to run, and never left open overnight with the water table this close.
Interior slabs in Los Alamitos come with the room additions and garage conversions the older tracts are getting, and the one thing they must not do is wick moisture into a floor. We pour over a 10 mil barrier on a drained base, trowel to a tile finish and joint on the room grid.
We come down the 605 and off at Katella Avenue, about 14 miles and 25 minutes from our yard on South Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton, which is the far side of what we cover but a road we drive most weeks. Permits go to the Community Development counter at Los Alamitos City Hall on Katella Avenue, and the applications that arise most are for a drive approach across the public walk and for a wall or a slab that carries a cover, since flatwork inside the lot line needs none.
Old Town, along Los Alamitos Boulevard where the sugar factory town began in the 1890s, is narrow lots and older houses, and the work there is a front walk, a porch apron or a drive squeezed beside the house with no room for a mixer. The tracts to the south and east of Katella Avenue are 1950s and 1960s single-story houses on wider lots, where the original drives and patios are now the age of the owners who bought them, and a truck can usually chute straight into the forms.
Fewer than half of the homes in Los Alamitos are owner occupied, which is unusual for Orange County and changes who calls. A good share of our work here is for a property manager, a parking court between two apartment buildings off Cerritos Avenue or a pool deck that has to be closed and reopened inside a fortnight, scheduled around tenants rather than around a family. The Joint Forces Training Base takes up much of the east side of the city, and nothing on it is ours to pour.
Four stages for a job on the flat, whether it is one drive for an owner or a parking court for a manager. The figure is written on site at the first visit and the base takes longer than the pour.
Grant Yoshida measures, checks where the water goes now and where it should, probes the subgrade, and writes the figure before he leaves.
The old slab comes out and the subgrade is opened to firm ground. Wet soil is replaced and 6 inches of base goes in, compacted in 2 lifts.
A drive approach, a cover or a wall goes to Los Alamitos City Hall on Katella Avenue, filed by us. Flatwork inside the lot line does not.
Poured to a quarter inch per foot toward the drain, jointed before dark. Foot traffic after 24 hours, cars after 7 days, tenants told ahead.
Call or send the form and we will get back to you within 1 business day with a time. Every estimate is measured and written on site, for an owner or a manager alike, and the visit is free.
Reviews
Left on Google and Facebook by the people we have poured for across north Orange County, including Los Alamitos, and describing drives, patios and parking areas built the way this page sets out.
“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 owners and property managers in Los Alamitos ask before they book. What moves the cost on wet ground, which permits the city wants, how far we drive, how long a drive is closed and which towns we reach.
The ground under it. A Los Alamitos job carries more base than the same slab inland, because the subgrade is often wet and 6 inches of compacted rock is what keeps the slab still, and a drain or a fall to the gutter is part of the design rather than an extra. Area, thickness and finish move it after that. We measure and write the figure at the first visit so none of it is guessed.
A drive approach across the public walk, a slab that carries a patio cover or a room, and a retaining wall over 4 feet. A patio, a path or a drive replaced inside your own lot does not. The permit goes to the Community Development counter at Los Alamitos City Hall on Katella Avenue, we file it and we meet the inspector, and an apartment job with more than one owner is filed under the association.
About 14 miles, which is 25 minutes down the 605 to Katella Avenue on a weekday morning. It is the far side of what we cover from Fullerton, so we plan a Los Alamitos job as a full day and bring the base and the steel with us on the first trip rather than counting on a second. The first visit to measure is booked the same way and costs nothing.
Because the ground under it is already full. Los Alamitos sits a few dozen feet above sea level on a plain that drains slowly, so a slab poured flat has nowhere to send a storm and ponds until the sun takes it. A replacement is poured to a fall of a quarter inch per foot toward the gutter or a drain, and if the yard is walled in we put a drain through the wall, since water that cannot leave goes under the slab.
Nine days, give or take one. The tear-out and the base take a day and a half here because we go deeper, the pour is a morning, and then 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car does. For a shared parking court we do it in halves so that nobody loses a space for the week, and we tell tenants the dates before the saw starts.
Yes, and so is Westminster to the southeast. Cypress shares the whole north edge of Los Alamitos and its 1960s tracts are the same kind of work, while Rossmoor next door is unincorporated and takes its permits from Orange County rather than a city hall. We check the address against the map before we file, because the lines around here do not follow the obvious streets.
Los Alamitos shares a line with Cypress to the north and sits a short run from Westminster and Stanton, all of which the same crew covers. Long Beach lies across the river to the west, and we do not cross the county line there.
Open the Fullerton Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and we will reply within 1 business day. The figure is written on site and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.