Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours driveways, patios and walls in San Clemente, from the Pier Bowl to Talega, 15 miles down the 5. The visit is free and the estimate is written there.
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San Clemente is hills to the beach. Ole Hanson laid the town out on marine terraces and canyons in the 1920s, and the tracts since, Forster Ranch to Talega, are pads cut from the same hills.
Those slopes creep. The rock under the town is a soft siltstone that takes on water in a wet winter and loses strength, and the bluffs along the beach are the visible case, where the rail line at their foot has been shut by slides more than once. Inland the movement is slower and shows as a pad settling on its fill side, a wall leaning a little more each winter, or a patio dropping at its downhill corner. Water drives it every time, and a slab that lets water under itself feeds it.
On a San Clemente lot we manage water before we pour. The visit finds where the yard drains and where it should, and the slab is graded to carry water to a drain or the street rather than over the pad edge. The base is 4 inches of compacted gravel, the slab is 4 to 5 inches with the steel at mid-depth, the joints are cut across the fall the day of the pour, and a wall at the pad edge gets a footing into firm ground and a drain, because a wall holding wet fill is holding the hill.
San Clemente was laid out on hills that run down to the beach, and almost every lot is on a slope, a bluff or a pad cut from one. The eight jobs below are how we build on that, and why the finish has to sit with a white wall and a red tile roof.
Driveways in San Clemente pitch hard, because the old streets climb from El Camino Real and the garages sit above or below them. We thicken the low end to 5 inches, tool a swale at the door, cut the joints across the fall, and broom the surface so a tire grips it wet.
A patio in San Clemente is often the only flat ground on the lot, held up by the pad the builder cut. We pour 4 inches on compacted gravel graded to drain to the low side, and finish it sand or salt in a warm tone, because gray broom beside white stucco reads as a sidewalk.
Stamped concrete in San Clemente is asked for in a Spanish tile or flagstone pattern in a terracotta or sand color, to match the style the town was built in. We stamp a 4 inch slab, color it in the mix, seal it twice, and in the old town check it against the city's guidelines.
Walks in San Clemente run down to the street on a grade, and the panel between your lot and the curb is the city's, with an encroachment permit before it is cut. We pour it to the city's standard, broomed across the fall, with a step where the grade is too steep to walk.
Garage floors in San Clemente sit below the street on many hill lots, where the drive pitches down to the door, and the fault is water. We pour the floor over a vapor barrier, pitch it to the door, and set a trench drain across the opening, so a winter storm runs out, not in.
Exposed aggregate and acid stain are the decorative finishes San Clemente asks for, because they read as beach stone and Spanish tile against stucco. We pour a 4 inch slab, wash the stone proud or stain the cured surface, and seal it, because salt air dulls a bare finish fast.
Retaining walls hold up San Clemente. The hill lots step down toward the beach and every level yard on a slope is a pad held by a wall below it. We set the footing into firm ground below the fill, drain behind it with rock and a pipe, and pour to a stamped plan above 4 feet.
Interior slabs in San Clemente go into rebuilds on the older streets and additions in Talega and Forster Ranch. We pour on compacted gravel over a 10 mil vapor barrier, trowel the slab flat enough for tile, and dowel it into the footing so slab and walls move together on the pad.
We come down the 5 from Mission Viejo, about 15 miles, and it runs the length of San Clemente to the county line at San Onofre, so every neighborhood is an exit. Avenida Pico for Talega and the north end, Avenida Palizada for the old town and the Pier Bowl, Cristianitos Road for the south. Permits come from the City of San Clemente's Building Division, and in the coastal zone west of the freeway a job may also need a coastal development permit, checked before it is priced.
The town has three ages. The old streets that climb from El Camino Real and Avenida Del Mar are the 1920s to 1950s, white stucco and red tile on small steep lots, where the drive is narrow and the finish is reviewed against the Spanish style. Rancho San Clemente, Forster Ranch and the tracts off Camino de los Mares are the 1970s to 1990s, on graded pads with a slope at the back. Talega, east of the freeway, is the 2000s, on cut and fill above the canyons, with an association review.
The beach sets the weather. The marine layer holds the morning cool most of the year and a slab poured before 9 here finishes evenly into the afternoon, which is the opposite of an inland September. The exception is a Santa Ana, when the wind comes down the canyons dry and the surface skins before it can be troweled, so we pour at first light and keep the slab wet for 7 days. Salt air is the other constant, and every finished slab within sight of the water is sealed.
Four stages, and the first one is longer here than anywhere else we work, because a lot on a slope is read before it is measured. Water, fall and access are settled before the estimate is written.
Trevor Lindqvist walks the lot to see where the water goes, probes the pad for fill, measures the work and writes the estimate on site.
We file with the city, check the coastal zone map for the lot, and submit to the association in Talega and Forster Ranch.
The old slab comes out, a drain is set where the water needs one, and 4 inches of gravel are compacted, deeper on a fill side.
The pour starts at first light, the joints are cut across the fall that afternoon, and the slab is wet cured for 7 days.
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, with the drain, the wall and the pump each a line of their own, so the figure is the whole job on a hill.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners in the towns we cover. The hill lots in San Clemente are held to the slab and the drain those 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 San Clemente homeowners ask before they book, about the estimate on a slope, the coastal zone and the permit, the drive down the 5, the bluffs, the days on site and the towns next door.
The slope, before the size. A drive that pitches to a garage below the street needs a thicker low end, a swale and a drain, and a patio at the edge of a pad may need a wall under it before it needs a slab. Access is next, because a hill lot with no side path is pumped from the street. Finish moves it last. We measure all of it at your house and write the figure there.
A patio or a drive replaced inside your lot line needs no permit. A wall over 4 feet from the bottom of the footing does, as does any wall holding a slope above a house, a drive approach in the right-of-way, and a slab under a room. The City of San Clemente's Building Division issues them, and in the coastal zone a coastal development permit may be needed as well. We check the map and file whatever applies.
Yes, with a soils report where the city asks for one. A bluff lot is the one place we will not pour on a guess, because the ground below it is the siltstone that has closed the rail line, and a slab that adds water to it adds to the movement. The work is drainage first, a slab graded away from the edge, and a setback the report fixes. If the report says no, we say no.
About 15 miles down the 5 from La Paz Road, and 20 minutes before the morning traffic, which is when the crew leaves. Talega and the north end are the nearer exits, the Pier Bowl and the south end a few minutes more. The distance is not on the estimate, and the pour is booked as a full crew day with the mixer and the pump meeting us at the house.
3 to 5 working days, then curing. Break-out, any drain and the base take the first 1 or 2 days, the pour is one morning and the joints are cut that afternoon. Feet stay off for 24 to 48 hours and cars off a drive for 7 days. A wall is backfilled after 7 days too, and a coastal permit adds its own review before the start, which the schedule allows for.
Dana Point and San Juan Capistrano up the coast and the 5 are on our list, and each has its own page. South of Cristianitos Road is Camp Pendleton and the county line, and there is nothing to cover. Capistrano Beach is part of Dana Point, so a job there is on that page, and a street on the line between the two is one we work either way.
San Clemente is the last town in Orange County, and the coast runs back north through Dana Point to Laguna Beach, with San Juan Capistrano inland at the Ortega Highway. We cover all four, and if your street sits on a line, the next page is the one to read.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is free and written on your lot, and the work carries a written guarantee.