Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours patios, drives and pool decks on the terraces of Dana Point, 12 miles down the 5 from our yard. The estimate is measured at your door and written there.
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Dana Point is a bluff. The town sits on marine terraces of siltstone and sandstone that end in a cliff over the harbor, and water leaving a yard on the seaward side leaves it over that edge.
A slab pitched toward the ocean sends every storm across the bluff top and into the face, which is what erodes. The terraces were cut by the sea and are held by the bluff below, so a patio that drains the wrong way works against the ground it stands on, a little each winter. Inland the problem inverts. The lots below Stonehill Drive and along San Juan Creek are flat and sandy, and a slab there ponds unless it is given a fall the builder never gave it, then loses its base to the sand.
So on the seaward side every slab is pitched back toward the house and to a drain that carries the water to the street, never out toward the edge, and a wall along that edge gets a pipe behind it for the same reason. On the flat side the fall is built in at a quarter inch to the foot with an area drain in the low corner. Both sides get 4 inches of compacted gravel under a 4 inch slab, and the steel sits deeper in the pour than inland, because salt air finds it through a hairline.
Dana Point stands on marine terraces stepped up from the Pacific Coast Highway, 1960s slabs in Capistrano Beach and 1980s ones in Monarch Beach. Replacing one means deciding where the water goes before the bluff decides for you.
A driveway in Dana Point runs down to the garage from a street above it on the terraces, or flat off Doheny Park Road on the sand. We pour 4 inches on compacted gravel, 5 at a pitched garage door with a swale across it, and permit a new approach at the curb through the city.
The patio on a Dana Point bluff lot was poured to drain toward the view, which is toward the edge. We break it out, pour 4 inches on gravel pitched back toward the house at a quarter inch to the foot, and set a drain that pipes the water to the street rather than over the bluff.
Stamped concrete in Dana Point goes on the patio and the walk in Monarch Beach, where the association wants the finish to read as stone. We cast a slate into a 4 inch slab with integral color, and seal it at 28 days and again every 2 to 3 years against the sea air.
Walks in Dana Point step down from the street to the door on the terraces, and a step heaves where the sand under it was never compacted. We take out the heaved run, compact what is under it, pour 4 inches with a joint at every riser and tie into the panels that stay.
A garage floor in Capistrano Beach sits low at the door on a flat sandy lot, and rain off the drive runs under it. We break out the front run pour 4 inches on compacted gravel with the fall to the door, and trowel it flat for a coating to go down a month later.
Exposed aggregate is the pool deck finish for Dana Point, because a bare wet foot grips it and the light matrix stays cooler in August than a colored slab. We seed the stone, hose the top off that afternoon, set an expansion joint at the coping and seal it once it has cured.
A retaining wall in Dana Point holds a terrace above the lot below, and on the seaward side it is the one thing between the yard and the bluff. We dig the footing into firm siltstone, set rock and a pipe behind the stem, permit anything over 4 feet and ask about coastal review.
Interior slabs in Dana Point are the addition on a Lantern District cottage and the garage turned into a room. We pour over a vapor barrier on gravel, because the sea air keeps this ground damp, dowel the new footing to the old and trowel the floor flat for tile.
Our yard on La Paz Road is 12 miles north, and a crew comes down the 5 to the Pacific Coast Highway, or over Crown Valley Parkway into Monarch Beach, in 30 minutes. Plans go to the City of Dana Point Community Development Department at City Hall on Golden Lantern. Most of the city is in the coastal zone, so a job near the bluff can need a coastal development permit as well as a building permit, and the city issues both under its own Local Coastal Program. We ask which before we draw.
Capistrano Beach south of San Juan Creek is the old end, 1920s cottages and 1960s ranch houses on flat sandy lots along Doheny Park Road, and the Lantern District above the harbor is the 1950s and 1960s on small terraced lots with the ocean at the end of every street. Monarch Beach at the north end went in from the 1980s around the golf course, on larger pads under an association, and Niguel Shores behind its gate has the 1970s slabs of a planned community reaching their end together.
The harbor and Doheny State Beach take the drainage of San Juan Creek, and everything above them sheds toward the water, so the street drains are where a slab's runoff has to be sent and the curb core is a permit from the city. The marine layer sits over Dana Point from May into August and burns off after noon, which gives a morning pour a cool set and a long window to finish, and the same damp air never lets an unsealed slab dry. We pour here year round and seal everything.
Four stages, one crew, and the coastal question asked first. On a lot near the bluff the permit takes longer than the pour, so it is filed the week the estimate is signed and the crew is booked to the day it clears.
Trevor Lindqvist measures the slab, shoots the fall with a level, finds where the water will leave the lot and writes the figure before he goes.
We ask the city whether the lot needs a coastal permit, file it with any building permit for a wall or a footing, and wait on nothing else.
The old slab is cut and barrowed out through the side yard, the sand is compacted, and 4 inches of gravel goes in, graded to the drain.
The slab is poured under the marine layer, pitched to its drain, jointed that afternoon and sealed at 28 days against the salt air.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. The visit costs nothing, the figure is written on site before we leave, and we are in Dana Point most weeks, from Capistrano Beach to the Headlands.
Reviews
Our reviews, left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners in the towns we cover from Mission Viejo. Dana Point is one of them, and the slabs behind the words drain the way described above.
“Our driveway in Aegean Hills had dropped two inches on the fill side of the pad. They probed it, found the soft half, dug it deeper and packed the base in lifts. They poured 720 square feet at 5 inches, cut the joints across the slope that afternoon, and two winters on nothing has moved.”
“The wall holding our back slope in Laguna Niguel leaned a little more every winter. They took it down, dug the footing 18 inches into hard ground, set drain rock and a pipe behind the new wall and poured it in a day. The first storm since ran clear out of the drain, not over the top.”
“Our pool deck in Lake Forest was the original 1990s one and had lifted at the coping. They cut it out, set an expansion joint around the pool, poured 480 square feet with a salt finish and had it walkable in two days. Bare feet in August and it stays cool enough to stand on.”
The questions we hear on a Dana Point lot before a job is booked, on what moves the estimate near the water, the coastal permit, the drive down from Mission Viejo, the ground and how long a slab is out of use.
The route the water takes, before the size of the slab. A patio on a bluff lot needs a drain piped to the street and a curb core, and a wall along the edge needs a pipe behind it. A coastal permit adds drawings and time, and the tear-out of a 1960s slab adds a day. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the fall shot before a figure goes on paper.
Sometimes, and the city decides which. Most of Dana Point is in the coastal zone, and work on or near a bluff, or on a lot the Local Coastal Program marks for review, needs a coastal development permit from the City of Dana Point. A patio at grade behind a house away from the edge is usually exempt. We take your address to the counter on Golden Lantern before we draw, and we file whatever it says.
About 12 miles, down the 5 to the Pacific Coast Highway, or over Crown Valley Parkway when the job is in Monarch Beach. That is under half an hour at 6 in the morning, so the crew is on your street before the beach traffic and the mixer is ordered for 8. The harbor end of town has one way in along the highway, and a pump truck is booked to be there before the crew.
Both, and which decides the base. On the terraces above the harbor it is siltstone and sandstone under a thin cap of soil, firm once the topsoil is off and slow to drain. In Capistrano Beach and along San Juan Creek it is beach sand and creek deposit, which drains fast and moves under a slab with no base. Both get 4 inches of compacted gravel, and the sand is compacted first until the plate stops sinking.
Three days for a patio, four for a driveway with a new approach. Break-out is the first day, the drain and the base the second, and the pour the third morning with the joints cut by the afternoon. Walk on it the next day and drive on it after 7. A coastal permit sits in front of that, and on a bluff lot it is the longest part of the job, which is why it is filed the week you sign.
San Juan Capistrano up the creek, San Clemente along the coast to the south and Laguna Niguel and Laguna Beach to the north, all from the same yard on La Paz Road. Capistrano Beach is Dana Point, whatever the mailing address says. If your lot sits near the San Clemente line on Camino Capistrano, call and we will say which page is yours before anyone drives out.
Dana Point meets Laguna Niguel above it, San Juan Capistrano up the creek and San Clemente past Capistrano Beach, and we cover all three from La Paz Road. If your street is on one of those lines, read that town's page as well.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day to book the visit. The measure and the written figure are free, and the finished slab carries a written guarantee.