Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete saws the trench through the walk, the patio and the apron on the fall the pipe needs, and pours it closed flush. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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How a cut is made here
Water on a hillside pad has to reach the street, and the only way there is through concrete. A rear yard that ends in a slope cannot drain over the crest without softening the fill the house sits on, so the water goes into an area drain and down a pipe along the side yard to the curb. On the way that pipe crosses the side walk, often the patio, and always the driveway apron. Each one is sawn on the line the pipe's fall sets, opened, trenched and poured back flush.
Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete cuts on the 1960s and 1970s pads of Aegean Hills, Cordova and Casta del Sol, where 40 to 60 years of patios and planters have turned the yard's fall back toward the house, and on the post-tensioned slabs of Pacific Hills and Painted Trails, which are scanned for cables before a blade touches them. Trevor Lindqvist traces the water from the back wall to the curb himself and crayons every cut, after 17 years on pads across south Orange County.
A trench on your own lot needs no permit, but the pipe's last foot through the curb face does, an encroachment permit from the City of Mission Viejo, and your association sees any walk on the street side. We file both. The license is CSLB C-8, held with the California Contractors State License Board, and we carry liability insurance on every job. The closed trench carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Water with nowhere to go
A puddle against the rear wall the morning after rain is the first sign. The pad was graded to fall to the street, and a patio, a planter or a lawn built up over decades has reversed it, so the water runs to the house and sits. It soaks the fill under the footing.
Algae on the side walk after a storm means the walk was poured flat, or has settled flat, and the water that reaches it stays. The side yard is the only route from the back of the house to the street, so water stopping there is not getting out. It is the first slab the line meets.
An area drain in the lawn that overflows in the first hour of rain is usually piped to the top of the slope and nowhere else. It empties the yard onto the fill below the crest, and a slope face wet for a week slumps. The pipe has to be turned and run to the street through the slabs.
A rear slope with a damp band across it in May, or a lip of soil that has slid a few inches below the crest, is water from the yard getting into the fill. The house bears on that fill. This is the sign to book the trench this month, before the drop reaches the back wall.
In every trench
Every trench carries these eight, and each answers something a hillside yard does. Water that has to fall the whole way to the curb, slabs that may carry stressed cables, and a gutter that runs straight to Oso Creek.
The trench is marked from the drain to the curb with the pipe's own gradient shot in, so the line runs where the water will, not where it is easy.
Any slab poured after 1980 is scanned for post-tension cables and pipes, and the trench moved to run between them rather than across them.
Both sides of the trench are cut with a diamond blade under water to full depth, so the concrete that stays keeps a straight, uncracked edge.
The cutting water is drawn off the slab as it is made and taken away, so none of it runs down the driveway into the gutter and the creek.
The strip is broken out between the cuts and hauled the same day, never hammered beyond the saw line where the old slab would spall.
The ground under the opened strip is dug to the gradient the pipe needs, bedded in sand, and checked with a level before the pipe is laid in it.
The strip is doweled to the old edges and poured back level with them, the surface matched to the broom or salt finish either side.
A hose is run into the area drain and watched out of the curb before we leave, and the written guarantee for the cut and the pour is handed over.
Ways to open concrete
Four ways to open a slab for a drain line, set against where each one works, how deep it cuts, the edge it leaves for the pour back, and the water it needs. The pipe underneath is the same in all four, so the table is about the cut.
| Option | Where it works | Depth of cut | Edge it leaves | Water it needs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walk-behind wet saw | Driveways, patios, any open run | 4 to 7 inches, set by the blade | Straight and square, pour-back ready | A hose and a slurry vacuum |
| Hand-held cut-off saw | Side yards under 40 inches wide | Up to 5 inches in two passes | Straight, a shade less square | A hose, slurry caught by hand |
| Diamond core drill | Curb faces, footings, stem walls | Through the whole thickness | A round hole, 3 to 6 inches across | Fed through the bit |
| Breaker on a saw line | A slab coming out whole | The full slab, in pieces | Ragged, unless a saw cut leads it | None, dust wetted down |
The walk-behind saw costs least per foot where there is room to run it, the hand saw least where there is none, and coring costs most but goes clean through a curb.
The pad and the street
Every yard in Mission Viejo ends at a slope or a wall, and its water has to reach the street, so almost every drain line here crosses concrete poured 40 to 60 years before anyone thought of it.
The pads were graded in the 1960s and 1970s to fall from the back of the lot to the street, and for the first owner they did. Then came the patio, the pool deck, the planter on the fence line and the lawn built up over it, and by the third owner the yard falls toward the house or the crest. Water at the crest goes into the fill the pad was made of, which is why the manufactured slopes carry terrace drains. Either way the fix is a drain piped to the curb.
That pipe crosses the side yard walk, on most lots the driveway, and its last foot goes through the curb face, which is the City's. Pacific Hills and Painted Trails were built on post-tensioned slabs, and a patio poured against one can hide the ends of the cables, so every slab there is scanned first. The cut is wet, and on a driveway that pitches to the street the slurry runs to the gutter and on to Oso Creek unless it is drawn off. The driveway apron goes back on its fall.
From walk to water test
Five stages, and the person who traces the water at the first is the one running the saw at the fourth. Any slab poured after 1980 is scanned between the marking and the cut, and no blade goes in until the scan is on the concrete.
Trevor Lindqvist traces the water from the back wall to the curb, shoots the fall the pipe needs, crayons each slab. The figure is written there.
The curb core is filed with the City for an encroachment permit and the walk shown to your association, both before a start date is fixed.
Post-tensioned slabs are scanned for cables, DigAlert marks the utilities in the parkway, and the line is moved where either one crosses it.
Both edges are cut wet with the slurry vacuumed, the strip is broken out and hauled, and the trench under it dug and bedded to the fall.
The pipe is laid and checked, the strip doweled and poured back flush, and a hose run into the drain until water shows at the curb.
Behind the number
The length of the run sets the figure and what the run crosses finishes it. A drain line from a back corner to the curb on a lot here is 80 to 140 feet, and the slabs on that line are what matter. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
How many slabs the line crosses, the side walk, the patio and the apron, each a cut, a break-out and a pour back on the estimate.
The walk outside your patio gate is the association's, so its review sits on the schedule and its finish has to be matched exactly.
A pool deck is cut around the coping and the pipe run beside the shell, which adds length, a second scan and a deck poured back to match.
A decorative surface cannot be patched to match, so the strip goes back as a full panel on the nearest joints, and that panel is measured.
Marking the line and writing the figure cost nothing, and the call to book the visit comes within 1 business day. (657) 390-1824 or send us a message.
Call or send the form, and the call back comes within 1 business day with a day for the visit. Trevor Lindqvist traces the water, crayons the line on every slab and writes the figure at your house, with no obligation past that.
Trenches we cut
Left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by owners whose yards we trenched, each naming the length of the run or the slabs the line crossed, and none about a new pour.
“Our Cordova yard flooded to the slider every winter. They cut a trench across the side walk and the driveway, 110 feet of it, ran the pipe to the curb and poured the concrete back so flush you cannot find the line. First storm, the water came out of the curb and the patio stayed dry.”
“The patio in Painted Trails is poured against a post-tensioned slab and I was nervous about anyone cutting near it. Trevor scanned it, drew the cables on the concrete in crayon and set the cut a foot clear of the nearest one. The trench was open, piped and closed in two days.”
“Our Pacific Hills lawn drain emptied onto the slope and the slope had started to slump. They cut through the side yard and the apron, cored the curb, and turned the whole system to the street. They vacuumed every drop of slurry off the driveway, which the neighbor's crew had not.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how many days the driveway is open, which cut the City permits, whether insurance pays, and what is guaranteed once the trench is poured back, answered for a yard here.
The length of the run and how many slabs it crosses. A line from the back corner to the curb on a lot here is 80 to 140 feet, and every slab on it, the side walk, the patio, the apron, is its own cut, break-out and pour back. After that it is the surface. A broom finish is patched to match and a stamped one goes back as a whole panel. All of it is marked on the concrete at the visit and written down.
Two to three days, then a week for the concrete. The side walk and the patio are cut and opened on the first day, the apron on the second so the car has the street, the pipe goes in as each strip opens, and the pour back is the second or third day. Feet go on the new strip after 24 to 48 hours and a car after 7 days. The yard drain works from the day the pipe is in, before the concrete is back.
Yes. Sawing, breaking out, hauling, the trench, the sand bed, and the strip doweled and poured back flush with the finish matched are one figure, and so are the scan and the curb core. The pipe is laid by us or by your landscaper, and the estimate says which. What sits outside it is named at the visit rather than added later, a root mass under the walk or an irrigation main in the line.
Not on your own lot. A trench through your walk, patio or driveway is exempt under the California Residential Code. The curb is the City's, so the core through its face for the pipe outlet takes an encroachment permit from the City of Mission Viejo, and the sidewalk if the line crosses one. A walk seen from the street is shown to your association. We file both and the schedule allows for their review.
Not as a rule. Surface water, seepage and a yard that has settled the wrong way are treated as maintenance by the policies written here, so a drain line to the curb is the owner's to pay for. The exception is a sudden covered event, a supply line bursting under the walk and washing out the base, which can carry the cut and the pour back with it. Photograph the standing water and ask your carrier first.
How it was cut and closed. Straight sawn edges, the strip doweled to them, the depth poured, the finish matched and the fall the trench was dug to, as written on the estimate, all under a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. The pipe is guaranteed by whoever laid it, us where we did. Tree roots, a later planter or fill settling under the walk sit outside it. A fault of ours, we fix.
A diamond blade run wet on a walk-behind saw, or a hand-held saw where the side yard is too narrow for one, with a vacuum on the slurry as it forms. The strip goes back in a 3,500 psi mix on number 4 dowels drilled into the old edges every 18 inches, over the trench backfilled and compacted in layers, and the pipe under it is bedded in sand. The mix and the dowel spacing are named on the estimate.
For the visit at the start and the water test at the end, when a hose runs into the drain and you watch it come out of the curb. In between the crew needs the side gate open, a hose bib, and the car off the driveway on the day the apron is cut. Sawing is loud for a few hours and runs inside the City's working hours, and the vacuum keeps the slurry off the street, so the neighbors see a wet line and no more.
Towns we cut in
The nearest eight towns on the coverage list and how far each sits from La Paz Road. A drain line in any of them is marked on the concrete before the figure is written.
Four jobs booked with a trench cut or straight after it, on the same line and by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate so the pour back and the new slab are one visit.
A side walk poured new on a fall to the street, with the drain line under it from the start.
A driveway rebuilt on its pitch, with the pipe sleeved under the apron before the pour.
A patio poured to fall away from the house and into the drain, so water never reaches the wall.
A deck poured back around the coping once the line has passed beside the pool shell.
The form or a call is answered within 1 business day. Tell us where the water stands and whether the yard ends in a slope, and the visit goes on the calendar inside the same week, with the figure written before we leave.