Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours patios, drives and slope walls in the planned communities of Temescal Valley, over the Ortega Highway from our office, and files the county permit.
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Temescal Valley has no city, but nearly every street in it has a gate or an association, and the association's rules are the first thing a concrete job here has to pass, before the county's.
The valley was built as a set of planned communities from the late 1980s to the 2010s, each opened by one developer with covenants that fix what a front yard may look like, and the covenants outlive the developer. So a widened drive, a colored walk or a wall seen from the street goes to the architectural committee with a drawing, and a job started without its letter is a violation whatever the county says. Trilogy at Glen Ivy, built for owners past 55, adds a patio with no step.
This is the part of the job we know from home. Mission Viejo is a city of associations, and the crew writes the submittal as a matter of course, plan view, finish and color named, with the estimate. What the valley adds is the pad. The houses stand on benches cut into the canyon side and filled on the downhill edge, so the yard is firm against the house and soft at its outer corner. We probe for that line, dig the soft fill out, compact 4 inches of base and joint the seam.
Nearly every house in Temescal Valley stands inside a master planned community, Sycamore Creek, Horsethief Canyon Ranch, Trilogy at Glen Ivy and the rest, each with rules for what shows from the street. The eight jobs below are written for that.
A drive in a Temescal Valley tract is the builder's, poured on the fill edge of the pad in the 2000s, and it is widened more often than replaced, because the rules leave room for a third car. We draw the added width for the committee, dowel it into the old slab and pour on base.
The builder left a bare pad and a 10 foot slab at the back door, and the patio is the first thing an owner here pours. We probe for the fill at the pad's outer corner, dig it out, pour 4 inches on compacted base with a joint on the cut and fill seam, and fall it to the drain.
A stamped path or apron in Temescal Valley is drawn to match the tract's paver front, because the committee will ask for that before it signs. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through, seal it in 2 coats, and it stays put in the heat where a paver bed loosens.
A walk from the drive to the side gate is the second pour on most lots here, because the builder's went only to the front door. We pour it 4 inches thick and 3 feet wide, jointed every 5 feet, and in Trilogy we pour it wider and flush at every threshold so a walker crosses it.
A garage floor in a 2000s tract is not replaced, it is prepared. The slab is sound but was troweled fast and has cured dusty, so we grind it, moisture test it because a slab on fill can push water up through a coating, and seal it, or repour a bay where the fill has dropped.
The valley floor runs past 100 degrees from June to September, and a dark slab by the pool is unwalkable by noon. We pour a light integral color with a salt or broom finish, which stays cooler underfoot, and submit the color to the committee with the estimate, since it shows.
The bank behind a Temescal Valley pad is fill on a canyon side, and the timber wall the builder put at the top of it leans by its 15th winter. We replace it with a concrete wall footed 18 inches into firm ground, drained with rock and a perforated pipe, permitted past 4 feet.
A casita or a converted garage here is a slab under a room, which Riverside County checks at the footing and again at the slab. We pour it on compacted base over a 10 mil vapor barrier, level to the house floor, on a still morning before the heat, with the plumbing sleeved first.
Temescal Valley is unincorporated Riverside County, so there is no city counter. Building permits come from the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and the inspector who comes to the footing is the county's. A patio or a drive at grade on your own lot needs none. A wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover and a slab under a room do, and the association's letter goes in with the application. Our office is in Mission Viejo, on the far side of the Santa Ana Mountains.
The way over is the Ortega Highway, State Route 74, from San Juan Capistrano across the mountains to Lake Elsinore and then the 15 north to Indian Truck Trail or Temescal Canyon Road, about 45 miles and an hour and a quarter, so the crew is on a pad before 7 and stays for the day. When the Ortega is closed after a slide or a fire, the long way is the 5, the 91 and the 15, and the day starts the same because the truck leaves earlier. A job here is booked in consecutive days.
The landmarks are older than the tracts. Glen Ivy Hot Springs has been at the foot of the mountains since the 1800s, Tom's Farms sits by the 15 at Temescal Canyon Road, and the canyon was the stage road between the coast and the desert before the freeway followed it. The houses came from the late 1980s on, Horsethief Canyon Ranch, Sycamore Creek and Trilogy around the golf course at Glen Ivy, on pads cut where the fans come off the slopes onto granite and gravel that drain.
Four stages, booked as consecutive days because the crew comes over the mountains once. The pad is probed and the figure written on the first visit, and the association's review runs while the county's does, so nothing waits on a trip.
Trevor Lindqvist probes the outer corner of the pad for fill, measures each surface, photographs the street view and writes the estimate there.
The drawing goes to your association first, and a wall, a footing or a room slab goes to Riverside County for plan check with its letter.
Soft fill at the pad edge is dug out and replaced, 4 inches of base is compacted, the steel is tied and the forms set to the yard drain.
The mixer comes from the Riverside side at dawn, the joints are cut the same day, and the slab is kept wet through its first week.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day to book the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the association drawing is written from the same measurements, so the committee, the county and you hold one document.
Reviews
Reviews our customers left on Google, Facebook and the BBB from the towns we cover, Temescal Valley among them, each about one job on one pad and how it has held up since.
“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 owners in the valley's tracts ask first, covering what moves the estimate on a canyon pad, who issues the permit, how we get here, what the association wants, how long a job takes and the towns near.
The fill under the outer edge of the pad, then access. A pad cut into the canyon side is firm at the house and soft at its far corner, and how deep the soft fill goes sets how much base is dug and laid. Then whether a mixer reaches the yard or the concrete is pumped from the street, and whether a wall is in the job. Distance is not a line on the estimate. It is measured at the free visit and written there.
Riverside County, because Temescal Valley is unincorporated and has no city hall. A drive, a walk or a patio at grade on your own lot needs no permit. A wall over 4 feet from the base of its footing, a footing under a patio cover and a slab under a casita go to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and the county inspector sees the footing before the pour. We file it with your association's letter.
Over the Ortega Highway to Lake Elsinore and up the 15, about 45 miles and an hour and a quarter, or by the 5, the 91 and the 15 when the Ortega is closed. Either way the crew leaves before 6 and stays for the day, so a job here is run in consecutive days with the truck loaded for the lot, and the mixer is ordered from a plant on the Riverside side rather than driven over the mountains.
Yes, for anything seen from the street, and in most of the valley's communities that includes the drive, the front walk and any color or pattern. The committee wants a plan view with the finish named, and its letter is what the county wants to see with a permit application. We write the submittal with the estimate so both reviews run at once, and in Trilogy at Glen Ivy we write it to the rules for thresholds.
A patio runs 2 days on site, a drive 3, and a slope wall about 4 with the county inspection between the footing and the pour. Then the concrete needs 24 hours before it is walked on and 7 days before a car parks on it or a wall is backfilled. From June to September we pour at first light, because the valley floor passes 100 degrees by early afternoon and a slab finished in that heat sets before it is troweled.
Lake Elsinore, at the south end of the valley, is the other Riverside County town on our list, and the two are worked as one trip over the Ortega. The rest of our coverage is south Orange County from our office in Mission Viejo, Laguna Beach to San Clemente, and the two Riverside County towns are the far end of it, booked as whole days by one crew rather than fitted around others.
Temescal Valley runs along the 15 between Corona and Lake Elsinore, and Lake Elsinore is the town on our list next to it. Corona is not, so a street at the county's north edge should check its address first. The rest of our towns are back over the Ortega.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day with a date. The estimate is free and written on the pad over the mountains, and every job carries a written guarantee on the build.