Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours the floor for a garage conversion or a back-yard unit in Westminster and rebuilds the drive that goes with it, 30 miles up the 405 from our office.
5.0 Stars Rated by our customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
The house on a Westminster lot was built for one family in the 1960s, and a good many of them now hold more than one household, which is why the garage becomes a room and the back yard gets a unit.
A garage conversion moves the parking onto the drive and puts a bedroom on the garage floor, and both were built to a lower standard than they now need. The builder's garage slab is 4 inches of 1960s concrete on unprepared ground with no vapor barrier under it, so a floor laid over it as it stands sweats and lifts within a year. The drive beside it was drawn for 2 cars and is now the only parking for 4, and it has cracked where the third car was pulled onto the lawn.
So the work is drawn as one project even when it is built in stages. The garage floor is cut out and repoured over a 10 mil vapor barrier at the level of the house floor, so the door has no step. The drive is widened to the line the City allows and poured 5 inches thick where the extra car stands. The unit's slab and footings go in to the engineer's drawing with the plumbing sleeved first, and the City inspects the footing before the pour. A 3 foot walk reaches the unit's door.
Westminster was built out between 1955 and 1970 as one house per 6,000 square foot lot, and the state's ADU law now lets a second dwelling stand on it. The eight jobs below are written around that change, from the new floor to the widened drive.
A Westminster drive was poured for 2 cars in 1962 and parks 4 now, and the extra ones have broken its edge and worn the lawn beside it. We take it out, widen it to the width the City allows at the curb, pour 5 inches on compacted base and file the approach permit.
A Westminster back yard is small and flat, and once a unit goes in at the back the patio is the yard, so it is drawn to leave a 3 foot path to the unit's door. We pour 4 inches on compacted base with a fall of a quarter inch a foot to the side yard drain, the one low point.
A stamped path from the street to a back unit tells a visitor which door is which, and it is the one decorative pour we are asked for in Westminster. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch walk, color it through, and seal it in 2 coats, and it never needs resanding as pavers do.
A unit at the back of a Westminster lot needs its own way in, and that is a walk down the side yard. We pour it 3 feet wide and 4 inches thick, jointed every 5 feet, over the water line and the sewer lateral that run the same way, after checking that both are sound.
A converted garage in Westminster is a bedroom on a 1960s slab with nothing under it, and a floor laid straight over it sweats. We cut the slab out, lay a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, and pour 4 inches level with the house floor so there is no step at the door.
On a lot with no shade a plain gray slab is too hot to stand on by 2 in the afternoon from July to September, and a Westminster yard is all sun. We pour a light integral color with a salt finish, which stays several degrees cooler underfoot, and stop the color at a joint.
Westminster is flat, so a wall here holds a raised patio or a planter rather than a hillside, 2 to 3 feet high, on the same wet silt as everything else. We pour a footing 12 inches into compacted base with steel tied into the stem, drain it behind, and keep it under 4 feet.
The floor of a detached unit is the Westminster job of the decade, a slab and footings on a back yard that has been lawn since 1962. We strip the topsoil, compact 4 inches of base, lay the barrier and the steel to the engineer's drawing, sleeve the plumbing and pour when passed.
Westminster is the far corner of our patch, about 30 miles from our office in Mission Viejo by the 5 and the 405, off at Bolsa Chica Road or Westminster Boulevard, and a crew leaving before 6 is at the curb in under 45 minutes. The city incorporated in 1957 and its permits come from the City of Westminster Building Division at City Hall on Westminster Boulevard. A slab under a dwelling and a footing go through plan check there, and a drive or a patio at grade needs none.
The lots are flat and on a grid, 6,000 square feet with a 50 foot frontage and a single story house on a slab, and that decides the access. A mixer chutes from the curb straight onto the drive, which is the one thing we almost never get on a Mission Viejo hillside, so a drive here is poured in a morning. The back yard is a different matter. The side gate is 3 feet wide, so a unit's slab is pumped over the house from the truck at the curb, and the pump is a line of its own.
Westminster began in 1870 as a temperance colony and stayed farmland until the tracts came, so the ground is the flat silt of the coastal plain, which holds water in a wet winter because there is nowhere for it to fall. A new slab here gets 4 inches of compacted base, a vapor barrier under any floor that will be lived on, and a fall of a quarter inch a foot to the street, the only low point on the lot. Little Saigon runs along Bolsa Avenue through the north of the city.
Four stages for a lot that is gaining a household. The whole lot is measured at once and the figure is written there, so the garage floor, the unit slab and the drive can be built in the order that keeps somewhere to park and a way in.
Trevor Lindqvist measures the drive, the garage and the back yard as one plan, checks the side gate for the pump and writes the estimate there.
A dwelling floor or a footing goes to the City of Westminster for plan check with the engineer's drawing, and we file it and book the inspector.
The old slab is cut and hauled in a day, 4 inches of base is compacted, and the vapor barrier and steel are laid ready for the inspector.
The pour is one morning, chuted or pumped, the joints are cut that afternoon, and framing goes on a floor after 7 days.
Send the form or call, and you hear back within 1 business day with a date for the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the garage floor, the unit slab and the drive as separate lines, so the second home is built in order.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners in the towns we cover, Westminster included. Each is about one job, what was poured and whether it has held.
“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 Westminster owners ask first, covering what moves the estimate, which permits a second dwelling needs, how far we come, what flat ground does in winter, how long a floor takes and the towns near it.
Access to the back, then what comes out. A drive or a front walk is chuted from the mixer at the curb and is the plainest pour we do. A slab at the back of the lot goes over the house by pump because the side gate is 3 feet wide, and the pump is a line of its own. After that it is the old slab being hauled and whether a floor needs a vapor barrier. All of it is measured at the free visit and written there.
Yes. Any slab under a dwelling, a garage conversion floor and the footings of a detached unit go to the City of Westminster Building Division at City Hall on Westminster Boulevard for plan check, and the inspector sees the footing trench before the pour. A drive or a patio at grade on your own lot needs no building permit, but a wider approach at the curb takes an encroachment permit from Public Works.
About 30 miles by the 5 and the 405, and travel is not a line on the estimate. It changes the day. A Westminster crew leaves before 6 and does not come back for a second load, so a drive is torn out, based and poured in 2 days rather than 3, and a unit's slab is formed one day and poured the next with the inspection between. What a customer sees is a crew that starts early and stays.
Flat coastal silt, which holds water because it has nowhere to send it. A slab poured straight on it sits in a wet winter's puddle and settles at its low corner. So every slab here gets 4 inches of compacted base to lift it out of the water and a fall to the street or to a side yard drain, and any floor that will be lived on gets a 10 mil vapor barrier under it as well.
About 9 days. The old slab is cut and hauled in a day, the base and the barrier go down the next, the pour is a morning, and the concrete needs 7 days before framing and flooring go on it. The City inspection falls between the barrier and the pour. A detached unit's slab runs a similar week, and the drive is done last so there is somewhere to park while the rest goes on.
Fountain Valley, next door to the south, is the only town on our list that touches Westminster, and Tustin and Newport Beach are the next nearest. Our office is in Mission Viejo, so the rest of our coverage is south Orange County, Laguna Beach to San Clemente. If a relative's house is anywhere in that range, the crew that did yours can do theirs.
Westminster is the north-west corner of our map. Fountain Valley is next door across the 405, Newport Beach is down the coast and Tustin is back along the 22 and the 55, and all three are on our list. Garden Grove and Huntington Beach are not.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Use the form and we phone back within 1 business day with a date to measure. The estimate is free and written at the house, and the work carries a written guarantee on how it was built.