Harbor Fullerton Concrete pours pool decks that never touch the pool, on a mastic joint at the coping, falling away from the water, over base laid where the clay was. The pool stays full throughout.
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Around the water
A pool deck is the one slab on a lot that is tied to something rigid. The shell is 6 to 8 inches of gunite on steel and it does not move; the deck around it sits on a foot of sand over clay and it does. Cast the two together and the deck carries every lift of the ground into the bond beam, and the first thing to go is the tile at the waterline. Cast them apart, on a joint that takes half an inch of movement, and the deck can heave a little every winter without the pool knowing.
Harbor Fullerton Concrete was started in 2021 by Grant Yoshida after 14 years on north Orange County crews, and he sounds the old deck and marks the plumbing before anyone swings a breaker. Most pools here went in behind postwar houses between the 1960s and the 1980s, and the decks round them are original, 3 inches thick, unreinforced, under an acrylic cool coating patched more often than it has been recoated. That deck is at the end of its life. The pool is not.
The deck is flatwork the California Residential Code does not permit on its own, but the pool barrier is not, so any fence, gate or alarm the new deck touches is filed with the city's Building and Safety counter and inspected against the Swimming Pool Safety Act. The work runs under a CSLB C-8 license with liability insurance on every job, one crew from breakout to hand-over, and leaves with a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or replace
An acrylic topping bonds to the slab, not through it, and once water gets under one edge the sheet keeps peeling. A recoat over a slab that is cracked underneath comes off again inside a summer or two, because the crack is what let the water in and the crack is still there.
A line of cracked or hollow tiles at the top of the pool wall is rarely the pool's fault. It is the deck, poured tight to the bond beam, lifting on wet clay and levering the beam up a fraction each winter. Regrouting the tile treats the mark and leaves the deck pushing on it.
A deck that has settled at the house end tips back toward the pool, and after a swim or a sprinkler run the water sits in a strip along the coping instead of leaving. That strip keeps the clay under the coping wet all summer, which is the ground you least want moving.
Stand on the corner of one panel and feel it drop. A deck panel that rocks has washed out beneath, usually from a leaking skimmer line or a return that has run under it for years, and the void is growing. That panel has to come up, and the line under it found and fixed first.
In every deck
Eight things come with every deck as standard, and each answers something a pool on this ground does. A rigid shell in soil that moves, water arriving from three directions, and plumbing a few inches down that nobody has seen since the pool went in.
The old slab is saw-cut along the coping and broken out away from the pool, so no breaker ever lands on the bond beam or the tile.
Skimmer, return and light conduit are traced and flagged before the dig, and any line found wet is reported before it is covered.
The clay under the old deck comes out to firm ground and compacted base goes in, because a deck on wet clay is the deck that pushes the pool.
Number 3 rebar on a grid, chaired at mid-depth, in a 4-inch slab of 3,500 psi concrete, so a panel spans a soft spot rather than dropping into it.
A half-inch foam joint between deck and coping, sealed with a pool-grade mastic, is the detail that keeps a moving deck off a fixed shell.
The deck drops a quarter inch per foot away from the pool, into a slot drain or the lawn, so splash-out and sprinklers never pool at the coping.
The water is covered before breakout and the pool is never drained, because an empty shell on wet clay can float and the deck never needs it empty.
You walk the deck against the sheet, the fall checked with a hose, and the written guarantee is handed over before the crew leaves.
Four surfaces
Four surfaces a backyard pool here is decked in, set against what matters at the water. Grip when wet, heat under bare feet in July, and how each is renewed. The slab, the joint and the fall are the same under all four, so the table is the surface only.
| Option | Grip when wet | Heat in July | Renewed by | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broom finish | Ridged, the surest footing of the four | Light gray, warm but walkable | Pressure wash, no coating to keep | 48 hours on foot, 7 days for furniture |
| Salt finish, bare | Pitted, good grip with a softer look | Same as broom at the same color | A penetrating sealer when it darkens | 48 hours on foot, 7 days for furniture |
| Stamped and colored | Depends on the pattern, sealed with grit | Warmest of the four in a dark color | Resealed when the color dulls | 48 hours on foot, 7 days for furniture |
| Acrylic textured overlay | Knockdown texture, good grip when new | Coolest of the four underfoot | Recoated, since it wears through | 24 to 48 hours on foot |
A broom finish costs least to lay and asks least of you afterward; the overlay is the only one that goes over a sound old deck, and the only one needing recoating.
Pools and ground
Two things decide a deck here and neither is the finish. A pool shell that cannot move, and a foot of sand over clay that moves every year around it.
The pools are mostly the same age as the houses. The tracts north of Chapman Avenue and up through Sunny Hills and Raymond Hills filled with backyard pools through the 1960s and 1970s, gunite shells dug into the same clay the drives sit on, the deck poured tight to the bond beam because nobody expected the ground to move. Forty winters of clay swelling under the deck and not under the shell is why so many show a cracked tile line and a deck tipped toward the water.
Water is the other half. A pool deck is wetter than any other slab on the lot, swum on from May to October, hosed, and sprinkled at its lawn edge, and everything that lands on it has to leave away from the coping. On a lot graded flat to the fence in 1965 that means cutting a fall in and setting a slot drain where deck meets lawn, or the clay under the coping stays wet all summer. A patio beside the deck is poured to the same fall.
From call to cure
Five stages, one crew, and the person who sounds the old deck is the person on the screed at the pour. The pool stays full, covered and out of use for about ten days, and nothing about the barrier is touched without the city knowing.
Grant Yoshida taps every panel, marks the skimmer and return runs, checks the tile line and bond beam, and writes the figure at the pool.
You pick the surface, the color and the drain line, and take a date. Anything touching the fence or gate is filed with Building and Safety first.
The old deck is sawn at the coping and broken out away from the shell, then the clay comes out to firm ground and any wet line found is fixed.
Base compacted in layers, the foam joint set along the coping, rebar chaired, and the deck poured to a quarter inch per foot away from the water.
Joints sawn the same day, the slab kept damp for seven days, the mastic run in at the coping, and the sheet handed over at the walk-through.
Behind the number
The shape of the pool starts the figure and what is under the old deck finishes it. Two decks of one area can be a day apart once the first panel is up, so nothing is quoted from a photograph. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A rectangle or a kidney behind a tract house is one deck wrapping four sides, and the number moves with how far it runs back to the lawn or fence.
A condominium or apartment pool here is larger, decked on every side and fenced to a standard the city inspects, so barrier work is measured too.
A deck that wraps a raised spa, climbs a step or meets a planter is more edge to form and more joint to seal, and every edge is priced as a run.
A salt or stamped finish is a second pass on the pour, and coping replaced with the deck is its own line, measured at the pool on the same visit.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call to fix a time for it comes within 1 business day of the form or the phone call. (657) 500-3759 or send us a message.
Send the form or call the yard and someone rings back within 1 business day to fix a time. Grant Yoshida sounds the deck, traces the lines and writes the figure beside your pool, and the sheet is yours to keep whether or not you book.
Decks we replaced
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a pool deck rather than a patio, and each naming the thing that was wrong with the old one.
“Our deck was the original from 1972 and the cool coating had peeled back to bare concrete on the sunny side. They sawed it out along the coping without touching a tile, dug out the clay and poured the whole wrap at 4 inches, broom finished. Pool stayed full and we swam inside two weeks.”
“The tile along the waterline had cracked twice and the pool company kept regrouting it. Grant showed me the deck was tight to the beam and lifting it. New deck on a mastic joint, falling away to a slot drain at the grass, and the tile has not moved through two winters since.”
“One panel by the skimmer had been rocking for a year. They lifted it, found the skimmer line had been leaking under the deck, had it fixed, then repoured that side in a salt finish to match what they did on the rest. Water runs off to the lawn now instead of sitting by the coping.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how long the pool is out of use, what the city checks, what is guaranteed and what goes into the slab, answered for a deck around a backyard pool here.
The edge, not the area. A deck is measured by how many feet of pool it wraps, how many steps, planters and spa walls it is formed against, and what is found under the old slab once the first panel comes up. A plain rectangle with lawn on three sides over dry sand and a kidney with a raised spa over wet clay can be the same square footage and a day apart in work. All of it is measured at the pool and written down.
About ten days from breakout to first swim. Two days to saw, break out and dig, a day for base and steel, a day to pour, then seven days with the slab kept damp before it takes feet and furniture. The pool stays full and covered the whole time, because an empty gunite shell on wet clay can lift, and the deck never needs it empty. Through July and August the pour starts early, before the heat gets into the slab.
Yes. Sawing the old slab along the coping, breaking it out and hauling it is written into the figure, and so is the dig-out of clay found underneath. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit and not added afterward. A skimmer line found leaking under the deck, coping you decide to replace at the same time, or gate work the barrier inspection asks for. The number on the sheet is the number on the bill.
Not for the slab, but for anything it touches on the barrier. A deck is flatwork the California Residential Code exempts, the same as a patio. The fence, the self-closing gate and any alarm on a door to the pool are the barrier the Swimming Pool Safety Act requires, and if the new deck moves or re-sets one of them that is a permit through the city's Building and Safety counter, with an inspection we stand.
Usually not, because a deck that has cracked and tipped over forty years is wear, and policies treat ground movement and wear as maintenance. A deck broken by a sudden covered event is different, a tree down on it or a burst supply line washing the base out, and a pool line that has undermined a panel is sometimes claimable as water damage. Photograph the deck before anything is sawn, and ask your carrier first.
The build. The base compacted under it, the thickness poured, the steel in it, the joint at the coping, the fall away from the water and the finish, each on the sheet before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Wear on a finish, staining from leaves and chemicals, and ground moving past what the joints control sit outside it. A fault in the build we put right.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix placed the morning it is batched, compacted base in place of the clay, number 3 rebar chaired at mid-depth, a half-inch foam expansion joint against the coping and a pool-grade polyurethane mastic over it once the slab has cured. A broom or salt finish is left bare; a stamped deck is sealed with grit in the sealer. All of it is named on the sheet, so what arrives can be checked against it.
Only for the measure at the start and the walk-through at the end. Between them the crew needs a hose, the side gate open, the pool pump running as normal and the children and the dog kept off the deck for a week. If the pool equipment or the only way to the back yard is on the side being poured, say so at the visit and the deck is poured in two halves so there is always a dry way round.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the yard on Harbor Boulevard beside each. Every deck is sounded and measured at the pool before a figure is written.
Four jobs that tend to be booked with a new pool deck or straight after it, poured to the same fall by the same crew and itemized on the one written estimate.
The dry ground between the deck and the house, poured to one fall with it.
The deck pressed in a pattern and colored, sealed with grit for wet feet.
The flight from the deck up to a raised spa or a sliding door, formed with it.
The wall that holds a sloping yard off the deck on a hillside lot.
Call the yard or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say roughly what shape the pool is and whether the deck rocks, tips or has lost its coating, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.