Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours drives, pool decks and slope walls in Yorba Linda, 30 miles up the 5, the 55 and the 91 from our office, and books every pour against the wind forecast.
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Yorba Linda sits at the mouth of the Santa Ana Canyon, where the wind that carries the canyon's name comes through from the east at its strongest, and a slab poured into that wind fails on day one.
Concrete sets by holding its water while the cement hydrates, and a dry wind at 30 miles an hour takes that water off the surface faster than the slab can bleed it up from below. The surface shrinks while the mass under it does not, and the result is a map of shallow cracks across the finish by evening, on a slab otherwise sound. The season is September to February and it arrives with a day's notice, so a pour here is booked against the forecast and moved when the wind is due.
On the days we do pour we start at first light, when the air is stillest, and we pour smaller sections so each is finished before the surface dries. An evaporation retarder is fogged on between screeding and troweling, the joints are cut as soon as the slab will take a saw, and the surface is covered and kept wet for 7 days, because a slab that has cracked cannot be uncracked. None of that changes the thickness or the base. It changes the calendar, and the calendar is on the estimate.
Yorba Linda is graded pads on the hills above the Santa Ana River, built between 1970 and 2005 under associations, where the canyon lets the wind through. Each job below says how the pad and the wind change it, drive to slope wall.
A Yorba Linda drive is long, because the lots are, and pitched to a garage below or above the street, so it carries the pad's water as well as the cars. We pour it 5 inches at the low end with a swale at the door, joints cut across the fall, and never on a wind day.
Most Yorba Linda patios stop a few feet short of the graded slope behind the house, and the builder's stops at 10 feet. We extend it on probed, compacted ground to the top of the bank with a fall back to the side yard drain, never over the slope, and pour before 10 in the day.
An association in East Lake Village or Bryant Ranch reviews color and pattern on anything seen from the street, so a stamped drive is submitted first and poured second. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through, and seal it in 2 coats once the letter is back.
A walk on a Yorba Linda pad runs down a side yard that steps with the grade, so it is poured as a run of short flat panels with a step where the fall demands one rather than as one long ramp. We pour it 4 inches thick, jointed every 5 feet, and set it clear of the slope's drain.
A 1970s garage floor along Yorba Linda Boulevard has cracked through where the pad's fill half settled under it, and a coating will not hide a step. We cut out the dropped bays, compact the base, dowel the new pour into the old and pour 5 inches level with the good bays.
A pad above the river takes the afternoon sun straight on, and a dark stamped slab is too hot to stand on in August. We pour a light integral color in a salt or broom finish, which stays cooler underfoot, and keep a pool deck lighter still, the one slab walked barefoot.
The bank behind a Yorba Linda pad is engineered fill held by nothing but a plant cover, and the wall the builder put at the top of it leans within 20 winters. We pour a concrete wall footed 18 inches into the cut side, with drain rock and a perforated pipe behind it, permitted.
A casita on a Yorba Linda pad is the second building on a lot that can take one, and its floor is a slab under a room, which the City checks. We pour it on compacted base over a 10 mil vapor barrier, level to the house floor, early on a still morning so the trowel finish sets.
Yorba Linda is 30 miles from our office in Mission Viejo, the 5 to the 55 and the 91 east through the canyon, off at Imperial Highway or Weir Canyon Road, and a crew leaving before 6 is on a pad in about 45 minutes. Permits come from the Building Division of the City of Yorba Linda at City Hall on Casa Loma Avenue. A drive or a patio at grade needs none. A wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover and anything cut into a graded slope go through plan check, and we file them.
The city is three bands of pads. Along the river and Yorba Linda Boulevard the tracts went in from the late 1960s and 1970s and their concrete is the original, cracked and lifted by 50 winters. East Lake Village was built around its lake in the 1980s, and its pool decks and drives now go at the coping and the apron. East of Fairmont Boulevard, Bryant Ranch and Vista del Verde came in the 1990s and 2000s on steeper pads, and the work there is the first patio and a wall for the cut.
The wind explains the rest. The 2008 Freeway Complex Fire came down the canyon on a Santa Ana and took houses in these tracts, so the associations look hard at what stands against a house, and a concrete patio or wall is the one thing we build that a fire cannot use. The same wind clears the air, so a pad on the upper streets looks down the river to the coast, and a slab there is poured with its fall drawn to the slope's drain, since the yard ends at a bank above the street.
Four stages, booked as consecutive days by one crew because the drive from our office is made once. The measure comes first and the figure is written on the pad, and the pour date carries a fallback for the wind from the day it is set.
Trevor Lindqvist measures each surface, probes for the fill side of the pad, checks the slope drain and writes the estimate before he leaves.
The drawing goes to your association first and to the City of Yorba Linda for anything on a slope or over 4 feet, and we book the inspection.
Old concrete is hauled, soft fill is dug out and 4 inches of base compacted, then the steel is tied and the forms set to the fall in a day.
The pour is booked against the wind forecast, starts at first light, is jointed the same day and kept wet for 7 days.
Call, or send the form, and we ring back within 1 business day to fix the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the pour date and its wind fallback set at the same time, so a Santa Ana in October moves the job a day.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners across the towns we cover, Yorba Linda among them, each about one pad, what was poured on it and how it has held through the winters 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 Yorba Linda owners ask, covering what moves the estimate on a slope, which permits the City wants, what the Santa Ana wind does to a pour, how the tracts differ, how long a job takes and the towns near.
The slope before the size. A pad here has a soft fill half and a firm cut half, and a slab across both needs the base dug deeper on the fill side and a joint on the seam. Then it is whether the mixer reaches the yard or the concrete is pumped over the house, and how much original concrete is hauled out. The wind moves the date, not the figure. We measure it all at the free visit and write it there.
Not for a drive, a walk or a patio at grade on your own pad. You do for a wall over 4 feet from the base of its footing, a footing under a patio cover, a slab under a casita and any work cut into the graded slope behind the house, and those go to the City of Yorba Linda Building Division at City Hall on Casa Loma Avenue. Most tracts here also have an association whose letter goes in with the application.
It dries the surface faster than the slab can replace the water, so the top shrinks and cracks in a fine map before the concrete under it has set. A wind day is any day the forecast puts the gusts through the canyon above 25 miles an hour with the humidity in the teens, and we do not pour into one. From September to February we book a pour date and a fallback, and the crew comes at first light on the one we take.
Yes, and it is the age of the pad. Along Yorba Linda Boulevard and the river the tracts are from the 1970s and their slabs are the original, so the job is tear-out and replacement. East Lake Village is 1980s and fails at the pool coping. East of Fairmont Boulevard the pads are steeper and younger, so the job is the first patio and a wall for the cut, and every one of them has an association.
A drive runs 3 to 4 days, a patio or a pool deck 2 to 3, and a slope wall about 4 with the footing inspection in between, then 24 hours before anyone walks on the slab and 7 days before a car or a backfill. Because we come 30 miles, a Yorba Linda job is done in consecutive days by the same crew, and a wind day in the middle moves the pour by one day rather than a week.
Placentia, next door to the west, and Villa Park across the river to the south are the towns on our list nearest Yorba Linda, and Tustin is the next down the 55. Our office is in Mission Viejo and most of our coverage is south Orange County, so Yorba Linda is the top of the map for us, which is why its jobs are booked as whole days by one crew rather than fitted around others.
Yorba Linda is the north end of our map. Placentia is next door to the west, Villa Park sits across the river to the south and Tustin is down the 55, and all three are on our list. Anaheim and Brea are not, so check the address on a city line.
Open the Mission Viejo Office in Google Maps Send the form and we ring back within 1 business day to fix the measure. The estimate is free and written on the pad, and every job carries a written guarantee on the build.