Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours driveways, patios and walks in Placentia, the farthest north we travel from Mission Viejo. The visit is free and the estimate is written at your house.
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Placentia is level. South of Yorba Linda Boulevard the tracts sit on the old grove grid at a grade a builder barely had to touch, so a slab poured to the ground is a slab poured flat.
A flat slab holds water on top and lets water sit under it. Rain that cannot run off stands in a low spot until it evaporates, and the water that soaks in at the slab edge stays in the base because there is no fall to drain it, so the base softens on the wet side and the slab settles into it and cracks along the line. On a hillside the ground drains the slab for free. On a Placentia lot the slab has to do it, and the driveways poured level in the 1960s show what happens when it does not.
So the fall is built in before the first form is set. On the visit we shoot the levels and find where the yard drains, and the slab is graded a quarter inch per foot away from the house toward that point. The base is 4 inches of compacted gravel to let the water out from under it, the slab is 4 inches under feet and 5 under cars, the steel runs at mid-depth, and the joints are cut the afternoon of the pour where the fall wants a crack to land.
A crew that pours on hillsides all week comes to Placentia to pour on flat ground, and flat ground has its own failure. Water that is not given a fall stands on the slab and under it. The eight jobs below are built to send it somewhere.
A driveway on a flat Placentia lot is pitched by us, not by the ground. We set the forms to fall a quarter inch per foot from the garage to the apron, pour 4 inches on compacted gravel, and cut the joints so a wet winter runs off to the gutter instead of standing at the door.
Placentia back yards are level and the builder's slab at the door was poured level too, which is why water sits against the house after a storm. We break it out, grade the base to fall away from the stem wall, pour 4 inches with joints every 10 feet, and finish it broom or salt.
Stamped work in Placentia is a front entry and a walk more than a whole yard, because the tract fronts are short and the pattern shows from the street. We stamp a 4 inch slab in ashlar or slate, color it in the mix so a scuff does not show pale, and seal it in 2 coats.
The walk in front of a Placentia house is the city's, from your lawn to the curb, and a parkway tree planted with the tract in the 1960s has had 60 years to lift it. The city issues an encroachment permit for it. We apply, prune the roots it allows, and pour the panel flush.
Garage floors in Placentia are the tract original, and the common fault is a slab lower than the driveway apron, so the winter rain runs in. We pour the new floor an inch above the apron, pitch it to the door, and set it over a vapor barrier so a coating goes on without lifting.
Exposed aggregate and a salt finish are the decorative work Placentia asks for, because the flat yards take full sun from May to October and a smooth dark slab is too hot to stand on. We pour 4 inches, wash or seed the surface, band it smooth, and seal it against sprinkler stain.
Retaining walls in Placentia are north of Yorba Linda Boulevard, where the lots climb toward the hills and a back yard steps up 3 or 4 feet. We set the footing below the topsoil into firm ground, lay drain rock and a pipe behind the stem, and pour to a stamped plan above 4 feet.
Interior slabs in Placentia go under room additions and garage conversions, where a level lot makes the pour easy and the drainage outside it hard. We pour on compacted gravel over a vapor barrier, trowel it flat for tile, and grade the yard so the addition is not its low point.
Placentia is about 35 miles from our yard on La Paz Road, up the 5 to the 55, the 55 to the 91, and off at Kraemer Boulevard, which puts a crew in the middle of town an hour after it leaves Mission Viejo. Building permits come from the Building Division at Placentia City Hall on East Chapman Avenue, and a drive approach, a wall over 4 feet and any slab carrying a roof need one. A patio or a drive replaced inside the lot does not. We file whatever is needed and meet the inspector.
The middle of town is 1960s and 1970s tract housing on the grove grid between Chapman Avenue and Yorba Linda Boulevard, with Kraemer Boulevard and Rose Drive running through it. Old Town Placentia on Santa Fe Avenue and Bradford Avenue is older and its lots are smaller, and Atwood by the tracks south of Orangethorpe Avenue is older still. North of Yorba Linda Boulevard the streets around Alta Vista begin to climb, the one part of town where the work looks like the work at home.
The drive is why a Placentia job is booked as a full day and never a half. The crew leaves before 6, the pump and the mixer are ordered to meet it at the house, and demolition, base and forms are run on one visit and the pour on the next, so nobody drives 35 miles to set two forms. It is also why the estimate is thorough. The levels are shot and the drain point is found on the first visit, because a second trip to check a grade is a morning lost.
Four stages, two long drives and one written figure. Everything that can be settled on the first visit is, so the crew comes back only to break out, pour and finish.
Trevor Lindqvist measures the slab, shoots the levels across the yard, finds where the water can go and writes the estimate on site.
We file at City Hall for an approach or a wall and book the crew, the mixer and the pump for the same morning at your address.
The old slab comes out on day one, the base is graded to the fall and compacted, and the forms are set to it and checked with a level.
The pour is one morning, the joints are cut that afternoon, and the slab is wet cured for 7 days. Cars go back on it after 7.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day to book the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the drive from Mission Viejo is not a line on it.
Reviews
Homeowners across the towns we work have left these on Google, Facebook and the BBB. Placentia is the north end of that list, and the slabs there are built by the crew the reviews describe.
“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.”
What Placentia homeowners ask before they book, about the estimate, the permit, the drive from Mission Viejo, the ground, the days on site and which of the towns next door we cover.
How much old slab comes out, then the finish. Most Placentia jobs replace a 1960s original, and demolition and hauling on a flat lot are a fixed share of the work before a yard of new concrete is poured. Size, thickness and a stamped or exposed finish move it after that. The fall we build into the slab does not, because it is forms and a level, not material.
A patio or a drive replaced inside your lot line needs none. The approach between the sidewalk and the street is in the public right-of-way and does, so does a wall over 4 feet from the bottom of the footing, and so does any slab under a room. Permits come from the Building Division at Placentia City Hall on East Chapman Avenue, and we file them and meet the inspector.
No, and the drive is not on the estimate. It is about 35 miles by the 5, the 55 and the 91, and we book Placentia as a full crew day, so a walk or a step is grouped with other work in the north of the county on the same trip. A patio or a driveway fills the day on its own. Either way you hear back within 1 business day and the visit is free.
Fine, deep and flat. The town sits on the plain the Santa Ana River laid down, and the grove it was before the tracts left a soft topsoil a foot or so deep. We dig through that to firm ground, compact 4 inches of gravel over it, and give the slab the fall the ground does not have, because level soil holds water against a slab and a flat slab holds water against the house.
3 to 5 working days on site, on two or three trips. Break-out, base and forms are the first trip and take 1 or 2 days, the pour is one morning with the joints cut that afternoon, and the walk-through is the day of the pour. Feet stay off for 24 to 48 hours, cars stay off a driveway for 7 days, and the slab is at full strength at 28.
Yorba Linda next door to the east and Villa Park to the south are on our list, and each has its own page. Fullerton, Brea and Anaheim border Placentia too and are not, so if your street is on the Fullerton side of the 57 or across the 91 in Anaheim we will tell you on the first call rather than after the visit.
Placentia sits between Fullerton, Brea, Yorba Linda and Anaheim, and of those we cover Yorba Linda, with Villa Park a few miles south. If your address is on a line, read the page for the town it falls in, or call and we will say which.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Call or send the form and we book the visit when we call back within 1 business day. The estimate is free, it is written at your home, and the work carries a written guarantee.