Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours driveways, patios, pool decks and walls in Lake Elsinore, an hour over the Ortega from our yard. It is the hottest town we work, so we pour at dawn.
5.0 Stars Rated by our customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
Lake Elsinore runs past 100 degrees for weeks each summer, and a slab poured at noon there loses its water before it can be finished. The heat is the first fact on every estimate we write in the town.
Hot dry air pulls moisture off fresh concrete faster than the slab can bleed it back, and the top skins over and shrinks while the concrete beneath is still soft. The result is plastic shrinkage cracking, a web of fine cracks across the surface within the first day, and a finish that dusts. So from June to September the truck is ordered for the first load of the morning, the pour is placed, floated and broomed before the sun clears the hills, and the slab is kept wet for 7 days.
The lake sets the second rule. It is the largest natural lake in Southern California, and within living memory it has both dried out and, in 1980, flooded the streets along its shore, so a slab near Lakeshore Drive or Grand Avenue is set high and pitched hard to the street, on a base that drains. Up in Canyon Hills, Tuscany Hills and Rosetta Canyon the ground is decomposed granite on cut pads, which drains fast and holds a slab well. The estimate says which of the two your lot is.
Lake Elsinore is the one town we cover beyond the Santa Ana Mountains, and the work is what a hot inland tract asks for. Driveways and pool decks that will not scorch a bare foot, patios shaded from the west, and walls holding the hill pads.
A driveway in Lake Elsinore is poured at dawn in summer, because the afternoon sun on a dark slab there cracks it before it is cut. We pour 4 inches for cars and 6 where a boat trailer parks, on compacted gravel, cut the joints by noon and keep the slab wet for 7 days.
A patio in Lake Elsinore faces the west sun off the lake, so we pour it in a light integral color with a broom finish that stays cool enough to use in August. The slab is 4 inches on gravel, pitched to the yard drain, and jointed on a 10 foot grid so shrinkage lands in a line.
Stamped concrete around a Lake Elsinore pool is cast in a pale flagstone or slate color, because a dark stamped deck in that heat cannot be walked on barefoot. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab with an expansion joint at the coping, wet cure it for 7 days and seal it twice.
A walk in Lake Elsinore is often the path from the street down toward the lake, on a slope over silt near the shore. We dig it to firm ground, pour 4 inches with a broom finish coarse enough for wet feet, joint it every 5 feet and set it above the line the lake reached in 1980.
Garage floors on the 1990s pads in Canyon Hills and Tuscany Hills crack at the door where the apron dropped on the pitched drive. We break out the apron, compact gravel over the granite, pour a 5 inch slab doweled into the garage and pitch it to the street to keep storms out.
Exposed aggregate and salt finishes are chosen for Lake Elsinore pool decks because a pale textured surface stays walkable at 100 degrees when a smooth dark slab does not. We wash the aggregate proud the same evening, joint it on a 10 foot grid, wet cure the deck and seal it.
A retaining wall in Lake Elsinore holds a cut pad above a slope in the hill tracts east of the 15. We foot it 18 inches into the decomposed granite, drain it behind with rock and a pipe for the winter storms, and take the permit through the City or County once it passes 4 feet.
Interior floors in Lake Elsinore are the slabs for casitas and garage conversions on the larger hill lots, poured in the cool of the morning over a vapor barrier at the level of the house slab. The perimeter footing is inspected before the pour and the top troweled flat for tile.
The crew reaches Lake Elsinore on the Ortega Highway, up from San Juan Capistrano over the Santa Ana Mountains and down to Grand Avenue on the west shore, about an hour from our yard on La Paz Road in Mission Viejo. When Caltrans closes the Ortega for a storm or a fire the truck goes round through Corona on the 91 and the 15, which adds most of an hour, so a winter job in Lake Elsinore is booked with a spare day in it and the truck is confirmed the evening before.
Lake Elsinore has two permit counters, and the address decides which. Inside the city, a wall or a footing that needs a permit goes to the Building Division at Lake Elsinore City Hall on Main Street, in the grid laid out when the town incorporated in 1888. Lakeland Village, along Grand Avenue on the southwest shore where the Ortega comes down, was never annexed, so a job there is permitted by the Riverside County Building and Safety Department. We check the parcel first.
Most of the town is younger than the lake grid. Canyon Hills and Tuscany Hills went up from the 1990s on pads cut into the hills east of the 15, Rosetta Canyon after 2000, and the tracts around the Outlets and the Diamond ballpark in between, so the driveways there are at the age where the apron has dropped and the pool deck has lifted at the coping. Those tracts sit under associations that review the frontage, and on a summer job the review comes before the dawn truck.
Four stages, with the clock set by the heat and the road. The estimate is written on the lot, the pour is booked for first light, and a winter job carries a spare day in case the Ortega closes.
Trevor Lindqvist drives over, measures the slab, checks the fall to the street and the shore water line, and writes the estimate on the lot.
The drawing goes to the City on Main Street or to Riverside County for Lakeland Village, and to your association where it shows from the street.
The old slab comes out, the ground is dug to firm granite or refilled above the silt, and 4 inches of gravel is compacted and wetted down.
The truck arrives at first light, the slab is finished before the heat, the joints are cut by noon, and it stays covered and wet for 7 days.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day to book the drive over. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the pour time and the curing on it, because in Lake Elsinore the hour of the pour is part of the job.
Reviews
Left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners across the two counties we work, one job each. Lake Elsinore is the farthest of those towns, and the dawn pours there are the work 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.”
Asked of us in Lake Elsinore, on what the heat and the drive do to the estimate, which counter issues the permit, how the crew crosses the mountains, what the lake does to the ground and when a slab opens.
The hour of the pour and the ground it sits on. A summer job in Lake Elsinore is poured at first light with a slowed mix and a 7 day wet cure, which is a crew hour and a return visit that a coastal job does not need. Near the shore the base is built up above the silt, and on the hill pads it sits straight on granite. Tear-out and finish move it after that, and the number is written at the house.
Not for a flat slab at grade on your own lot, which the California Residential Code leaves alone. A retaining wall over 4 feet from the bottom of the footing, a wall holding a slope and a footing under a cover need one, from the Building Division at Lake Elsinore City Hall on Main Street inside the city, or from the Riverside County Building and Safety Department in Lakeland Village. We file with the right one.
Over the Ortega Highway, about an hour from our yard on La Paz Road, coming down to Grand Avenue on the west shore. The truck is timed to that drive, with the plant slowing the mix so it arrives workable, and when the Ortega is closed the crew goes round through Corona with a spare day booked. You hear back within 1 business day, and the first visit is a day trip we make most weeks in summer.
Yes, near the water. The streets along Lakeshore Drive and Grand Avenue sit on lake silt with water not far below, and the lake flooded them in 1980, so a slab there is set higher than the old one, pitched hard to the street, and poured on a gravel base thick enough to drain. Up on the hill pads in Canyon Hills or Tuscany Hills the ground is decomposed granite, which drains on its own.
About 10 days. Tear-out and base take 2 days, the pour is one dawn, and the slab is covered and kept wet for 7 days before a car goes on it, because a slab that dries out in the Lake Elsinore heat never reaches the strength it was mixed for. Feet can cross it after 48 hours. In winter the cure is the same 7 days, but the pour is booked for a clear day with a spare in hand.
Temescal Valley, up the 15 toward Corona, and El Sobrante beyond it, both unincorporated and permitted by Riverside County, and each with its own page here. On the coast side of the Ortega the crew starts from San Juan Capistrano and Rancho Santa Margarita. Wildomar and Murrieta are next door to Lake Elsinore but are not on our list, so if you are there we will say so on the phone.
Lake Elsinore is the far end of our coverage, with Temescal Valley and El Sobrante up the 15 and San Juan Capistrano at the coast end of the Ortega, and one crew drives to all of them from La Paz Road. On the county line, call and we will say.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day to book the drive over. The estimate is free and written on the lot, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee.