Harbor Fullerton Concrete pours driveways, front pads, patios and shop floors in West Whittier-Los Nietos, county ground where there is no city hall to file at. Free written estimates.
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West Whittier-Los Nietos has never incorporated. It is Los Angeles County ground between Whittier and the San Gabriel River, so there is no city hall, and every permit and inspection is the county's.
That changes the job in two ways. A homeowner used to walking into a city counter finds there is none, and a contractor from a city next door often files in the wrong place and loses a month. Permits here come from Los Angeles County Public Works, Building and Safety, the front yard paving limit is the county's Regional Planning, not Whittier's, and the curb approach is a county road permit. Under the paperwork the ground is river sand, and it packs hard.
So we file with the county from the start and draw the front pad to its rules, because a pad poured past the paving limit is a pad the county can make you break out. The concrete itself is plain work done properly. A drive or a pad is 5 inches on 4 inches of compacted base, because the pad carries a work truck as often as a car. A patio is 4 inches, doweled into the house slab so the two do not step apart. On the river sand we wet the base first so it does not drink the mix.
The houses here are small, 1940s and 1950s, on lots that once had room for chickens and have been filling with cars since. The work is the drive and the pad in front, the patio that is the whole back yard, and the shop floor on the railway side.
The Los Nietos drive is widened into a pad for 2 more cars behind a gate, because the house has 3 or 4 and the street is full. We draw it to the county's paving limit, file the curb cut as a county road permit, and pour 5 inches on 4 inches of compacted base, jointed at 10 feet.
A patio here is the whole back yard behind a 1,000 square foot house, so it is poured to the fence and to the garage in one piece. We lay 4 inches on base, dowel it into the 1950s house slab so the two never step apart, and joint it in a grid that suits the yard.
A stamped tile or brick pattern is asked for on the front court behind the gate, where the pad is what the street sees. We stamp it into a 5 inch slab with a plain border so it still takes a truck, color it light for the sun, and seal it twice against oil and sprinklers.
Many streets in Los Nietos have no public sidewalk, so the walk is the path from the gate to the door and around to the garage. We pour it 4 inches thick and 4 feet wide, broom finished and jointed in squares. Where a public walk exists we replace it under a county permit.
The detached garage behind a Los Nietos house has a 1940s slab that is thin, cracked and on its way to being a room under the county's ADU rules. We replace it 4 inches thick over a 10 mil barrier on compacted base, troweled flat and leveled to the house floor.
Exposed aggregate suits a front court that is mostly concrete, because it reads as a surface and not as a car park. We use a pea gravel mix, hose the cream off the top before it sets so the stone stands proud, saw a border and seal it. A light salt finish is the other choice.
The flats have no hillside, so a wall here holds a raised bed, a planter or a pool, and is rarely over 3 feet. We build it on a footing 12 inches into firm sand with gravel behind and cap it level. Over 4 feet the county wants a permit and an engineer, and we bring both.
Along Los Nietos Road and the railway the floors are shop floors, and a house lot gets an ADU floor. The shop gets 6 inches with steel for a forklift, sealed. The ADU gets 4 inches on a vapor barrier, floated for tile or polish. Both are sawn the same day and kept damp.
Our yard is in Fullerton, and a crew comes along Whittier Boulevard through Whittier to Norwalk Boulevard, about 30 minutes, with the Pio Pico adobe on the boulevard marking where the community begins. Los Nietos takes its name from the rancho granted to Manuel Nieto in 1784, a century before the Quakers laid out Whittier next door, and the streets between Norwalk Boulevard, Sorensen Avenue and Los Nietos Road were farm lots into the 1940s before the small houses went up on them.
Those lots are the job. A 1950s house of 1,000 square feet sits at the front of a lot deep enough for a detached garage at the back, and the household has grown into 3 or 4 cars, so the drive is widened to a pad behind a gate and the garage is on its way to becoming an ADU under the county's rules. Many streets here were never given a public sidewalk, so a walk is a private path from the gate to the door, and where a public walk does exist it is the county's to permit.
The south and west of the community, along Los Nietos Road and the railway, is light industrial, machine shops and yards in metal buildings, and the floors and aprons there are a different job from the houses, poured 6 inches with steel for forklifts and trucks. The 605 runs along the river on the west edge and takes the noise. Summers on the flats run in the 90s from July to September, and a pour here starts at 6 and is finished by 10.
The address is checked against the county map before anything is drawn, because the community line runs down the middle of ordinary streets and the office that issues the permit changes with it. Then the job runs in a week.
Grant Yoshida confirms the address is county ground, measures the drive, the pad or the patio, checks the gate for the truck and writes it up.
The old slab comes out, the sand is trimmed and wetted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is placed and plate-compacted to a firm, level bed.
Flatwork at grade needs no permit. A pad past the paving limit, a curb cut or a wall over 4 feet is filed by us with Los Angeles County.
Most jobs here are 2 days on site. The pour starts at 6, the joints are sawn by afternoon, the slab takes feet at 24 hours and a car at 7 days.
Call or send the form and you hear from Grant Yoshida within 1 business day with a day for the visit. The measure and the written figure are free, and the county paperwork is ours to do, not yours.
Reviews
The reviews are ours, on Google and Facebook, from homeowners in the towns we cover out of Fullerton. The Los Nietos ones are about the front pads and the shop floors 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 we are asked here, on cost, on which county office issues the permit and why there is no city hall, on the drive from Fullerton, on the river sand, on timing and on the towns either side.
The size of the pad, then the gate. A front pad wide enough for 2 cars beside the drive doubles the area of a tract drive, at 5 inches rather than 4. If the gate is under 8 feet the truck cannot back in and the concrete is barrowed or pumped, which is crew hours on one slab. A county permit, where one is needed, is a fee and a few weeks, not a change to the job. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Los Angeles County Public Works, Building and Safety, because the community is unincorporated and has no city building office. A drive, a patio or a walk at grade on your own lot needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover and a floor for a habitable room do, and the approach at the curb is a county road permit. We file all of it and meet the county inspector.
About 10 miles, and 30 minutes along Whittier Boulevard to Norwalk Boulevard. You hear from us within 1 business day, the visit goes into that week, and once the job starts the same crew comes back each day until it is done. Most jobs here are 2 days, so the drive is made 3 times and not 10.
No. It is the sand the San Gabriel River spread across these flats before the county put the river in its channel, and sand packs hard and drains. The one thing it does is drink the water out of fresh concrete, so the base is wetted before the truck arrives and the slab is kept damp for 3 days after. A slab poured dry on this sand loses its surface in a year. Poured properly it lasts 30 years and more.
About 9 days. The old drive comes out in a morning, the base goes in the same day and the pour is the next. Walk on it the day after, park a car on it a week after that, and a work truck 3 days later still. The cars sit on the street for that week, and we time the curb cut so the parkway is open for one day.
Whittier on the east and north, which is a city and files at its own City Hall, Santa Fe Springs to the south and La Mirada beyond it. We do not cover Pico Rivera across the river or Norwalk. If your street is on the Whittier line the difference is only the permit office, and we know which side you are on before we draw anything.
The community sits between Whittier and the San Gabriel River, with Santa Fe Springs below it, and we cover both of those and La Mirada beyond. Each has a page of its own, and Whittier's explains a city permit where this one explains the county's.
Open the Fullerton Office in Google Maps Send the form and you hear from us 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.