Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete rebuilds the deck between a pool and the slope behind it, pitched to the pad's drains so splash never reaches the fill. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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The deck on a hillside pad
A pool deck on a hillside pad is the last flat surface before the ground drops away, and that is the job it has to do. Most Mission Viejo pools were dug at the back of the pad in the 1970s and 1980s, with the deck running from the coping to within a few strides of the top of the rear slope. Every gallon that lands on it, splash, backwash, a winter storm, goes wherever the surface sends it, and a surface that sends it over the crest puts it into fill that was never graded to take it.
Trevor Lindqvist founded Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete in 2018 after 17 years on crews across south Orange County, and a pool deck on a graded pad is the job he has stood over most. The first decks here were thin, a spray-textured topping over 3 inches of concrete laid on the pool's own backfill, poured flat because nobody had asked where the yard drain was. He shoots the fall from the coping to the drains first, because the fall is what the new deck is for.
Decks are built under a CSLB C-8 license with liability insurance on every job, to the California Residential Code and to the bonding the California Electrical Code asks for within 3 feet of the water, which the City of Mission Viejo's Building Division inspects before it is covered. The finished deck carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built, and the terms are printed on the estimate you sign.
Repair or replace
After a swim the deck should be dry inside an hour. A puddle that sits on the far side, toward the slope, means the slab has tipped that way on settling fill, and every swim is now watering the crest. A topping will not lift a slab that has dropped at one edge; only the base can.
The textured coating the original builders used over the concrete lets go once water gets under it, and it lifts in plates the size of a hand. Recoating sticks to the sound patches and fails at the same edges within a summer, because the moisture that lifted it is still there.
Where the deck meets the lawn or the planter on the slope side, a gap you can fit a finger into means the slab has moved off the pool or the ground under that edge has gone. Either way the deck's water now runs down the gap into the backfill and the slope, and it widens every winter.
A crack where one side stands higher than the other, running from the middle of the deck toward the slope, is the fill side of the pad going down under the slab. Cracks like that carry the deck's water to the crest. That is the sign to stop patching and rebuild on a graded base.
In every deck
Eight things are in every deck at no separate line, each answering what a pad here does to a slab: fill that keeps settling on the slope side, a pool that stays exactly where it is, and a crest a few strides away that must never take the deck's water.
The topping and the slab are sawn free of the coping, broken out and hauled, down to the backfill, so nothing old is bridged over.
A bar is driven at every corner and along the slope side, because the pool's backfill and the pad's fill meet there and both are soft.
4 inches of crushed rock, compacted in two lifts and graded to fall toward the yard's area drains rather than toward the crest.
A copper bonding conductor runs the perimeter within 3 feet of the water and ties to the pool's steel, and the inspector sees it before the pour.
A compressible strip between the coping and the deck, sealed along the top, so the deck moves on its own base and never pushes on the bond beam.
3,500 psi mix at 4 inches, screeded to a quarter inch of fall in every foot away from the water toward the drain, checked with a level as it goes.
A salt or light broom finish for wet feet, sealed at 28 days with a penetrating sealer that keeps chlorine and leaf tannin out of the surface.
A hose run over the finished deck with you to watch where it drains, then the written guarantee handed over before the crew leaves.
How it can be built
Four ways to rebuild the deck around a pool that stays, judged on the one thing a hillside pad asks of them, which is how each one takes the deck's water to a drain. The base, the bonding and the isolation at the coping are the same in all four.
| Option | Suits | Fall to drain | In August sun | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broom finish, 4 inches | A deck that drains already, repoured as it was | Reset in the base, a quarter inch a foot | Warm, a pale gray mix helps | 30 to 40 years |
| Salt finish, 4 inches | Bare feet, a deck the family swims from daily | Reset in the base, a quarter inch a foot | Cooler, the pits shade the surface | 30 to 40 years |
| Cantilever edge pour | A pool whose coping is cracked or lifting | Reset at the water's edge and the drain both | As its finish, salt or broom | 30 years or more |
| Overlay on the old slab | A slab that is level, dry and uncracked | Whatever the old slab had, unchanged | Coolest of the four if pale | Shortest of the four |
The overlay is the least to lay and the first to fail; a full pour with a cantilever edge costs the most and is the only one that resets the fall at the water's edge.
Pads and slopes
Two things fix a pool deck here and neither is the pool. The rear slope a few strides past the deck's far edge, and the area drains the pad was graded to, which the deck has to reach.
The Mission Viejo Company built the city by benching the Saddleback foothills into pads, and on most streets a pad ends at a manufactured slope, cut on one side and filled on the other, dropping to the lot below or the street behind. The pool went into the back of the pad, so its deck sits on the filled half, with the crest a skimmer pole away. The slope was built to shed rain down its face to a ditch at the toe, never to take a summer of splash off a deck tipped toward it.
The drains are the other half. Every pad was graded with area drains along its low edge, grates in the lawn or the planter that run under the slope to the street, and a deck that reaches them takes its water off the pad the way the grading plan meant. The original decks mostly stopped short of the drains or fell the wrong way, so the fix is the base, graded from the coping out to a drain, and the deck poured to that fall. Where the slope has moved, the retaining wall comes first.
From call to cure
Five stages with one crew, and the person who reads the fall with a level at the first visit is the one on the deck at the pour. The bonding is filed with the City before the old deck is touched, and the pool stays full throughout.
Trevor Lindqvist shoots levels from the coping to the far edge and the nearest drain, drives a bar along the slope side, and writes the figure.
You pick broom, salt or a cantilever edge, and a date. The bonding is filed with the City, and a line pump booked for a yard no truck can reach.
The deck is sawn off the coping and broken out, and soft backfill along the pool and the slope side is dug out and replaced with crushed rock.
Rock compacted and graded to the drain, the bonding grid tied and inspected, the isolation strip set, and a 4-inch pour pumped in and done by noon.
Kept damp 7 days, joints cut the first afternoon, sealed at 28 days, and the hose run across it with you to watch every drop reach the drain.
Behind the number
The square footage starts the figure and the fall finishes it. Two decks the same size can be a day's digging apart once the slope side is probed, and a pump apart if the yard sits below the street. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A rectangular pool with the deck on three sides and lawn on the fourth is the base case: break-out, base graded to one drain, one morning's pour.
A community deck is worked in halves so the pool stays open, and its bonding, barrier and drainage are inspected to the public pool standard.
Where the far edge is within a stride of the crest, the base is dug back to firm ground and a curb formed along that edge, which is its own day.
A poured cantilever edge in place of the coping, and an integral color or a salt finish under sealer, are measured as their own areas.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call that books it comes within 1 business day. Nothing is quoted from a photo of the pool. (657) 390-1824 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to set a time. Trevor Lindqvist shoots the levels, probes the slope side and writes the figure at the pool, and you keep it as long as you like before deciding.
Decks we rebuilt
Three reviews from Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a pool deck on a pad that ends at a slope, and each saying where the water goes now that it did not go before.
“Our deck in Pacific Hills had tipped toward the slope and the fence along the top was leaning. They dug the far side out to hard ground, graded the rock back toward the lawn drain and poured 540 square feet with a salt finish. First storm since, the drain ran and the slope stayed dry.”
“The 1978 spray coating on ours came off in sheets every summer. Trevor Lindqvist sawed the whole deck off the coping, ran the bonding wire round it, and poured it new with a fall you can watch with a hose. The inspector came out for the bonding and signed it the same morning.”
“Our pool in Aliso Viejo sits right at the top of the slope and the old deck had a gap at the far edge you could put a hand in. They built a curb along that side, took the base down to firm ground and poured the deck with the fall back to the yard drain. Two winters and no gap.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how long the pool is out of use, what the bonding permit is, what the guarantee covers beside a slope, and what stays yours to do, answered for a deck on a pad here.
The fall, before the size. A deck that already drains to the yard is broken out and repoured on a regraded base; one that has tipped toward the slope needs the far side dug to firm ground and a curb formed along the crest, which is a day more. After that it is access, since a pool below the street is pumped from the curb, and then the finish. Every one of those is measured at the pool and written down.
Three working days and then the cure, and the water stays in the pool throughout. Break-out and digging take two days, the bonding inspection and the pour the third. The deck takes bare feet at 48 hours and swimmers at 7 days, and the sealer goes on at 28 days, so a family that books it for the weeks before the season has a sealed deck by the first hot weekend. The pump is on the street for one morning.
Yes. Sawing the old deck off the coping, breaking it out, hauling it and digging out the soft backfill are in the figure, and so are the bonding conductor and its inspection. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit rather than added later: coping that breaks when the deck is cut free, a fence along the crest that has to come out, or a drain line found crushed. The number you sign is the one on the bill.
For the bonding, yes. The slab itself is flatwork the California Residential Code exempts, but the California Electrical Code wants the deck within 3 feet of the water bonded to the pool's steel, and that is electrical work the City of Mission Viejo's Building Division inspects before it is covered. We file it. A permit can also bring the state's pool barrier rules into play, so the gate and fence are checked.
Almost never. Settling fill, cracks from shrinkage and a coating that has lifted are treated as wear, so a deck that has tipped over 30 years is the owner's to rebuild. The exception is a sudden covered event, a pipe under the deck bursting and washing the base out, or a slope failure in a storm where the policy covers it. Photograph the deck and the slope before the break-out, and ask your carrier first.
How it was built: the base graded to the drain, the 4-inch thickness, the isolation at the coping, the bonding and the finish, with the terms printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Movement of the slope, fill settling further, chemical staining and wear of the sealer sit outside it. Where the fault is in the build, we come and fix it.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix at 4 inches with fiber through it, crushed rock base compacted in two lifts, number 3 rebar in any cantilever edge, a solid copper bonding conductor tied to the pool's steel, and a compressible strip at the coping. The sealer is a penetrating one rather than a film, because a film over a deck that is wet every day turns milky and peels. Each is named on the estimate you sign.
Only for the measurement at the start and the walk-through at the end. Between them the crew needs the side gate open, a hose tap, and the pool's pump switched off on the day the deck is cut free so nothing goes into the skimmer. If the yard is below the street the line pump runs from the curb for one morning, and we tell the neighbors the day before. Dogs stay in for the three working days.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on La Paz Road beside each. Every deck is measured at the pool before a figure is written, whichever town it is in.
Four jobs booked with a deck or straight after it, on the same probed base and pumped in on the same morning, and itemized on the one written estimate.
A wall at the crest of the slope, holding the deck's far edge where the fill has moved.
The patio between the house and the deck, poured to the same fall and the same finish.
The flight from the patio down to a pool set a level below the house.
Exposed aggregate or a colored salt finish on the deck, sealed against chlorine.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say which side of the pool the slope is on and whether the yard sits above or below the street, and the visit is booked for a day inside the same week.