Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete replaces the builder's tie and block walls at the pad edge with a footed wall sized for what stands above it. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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The wall behind the house
Most of the walls we replace in Mission Viejo were put up by the tract builder when the pad was graded, and they were built to sell a house rather than to last with it. A row of railroad ties spiked together, or slump block laid on a strip of concrete a foot wide, held the yard off the slope for the first buyer and has been leaning ever since. The timber is rotting at the ground line after 40 years, the block has no steel in it, and neither was drained.
Trevor Lindqvist founded Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete in 2018 after 17 years on crews across south Orange County, much of it rebuilding exactly these walls, and he sets out the footing on every one. The old wall comes down in short bays so the slope is never open along its whole length, the footing is dug through the yard fill into the cut ground beneath it, and the stem is poured with the steel an engineer sized for the height and for what the pad above is carrying.
The wall is built to the California Residential Code under a CSLB C-8 concrete license, with liability insurance on every job. A retaining wall over 4 feet from the footing bottom, or any wall holding a slope above it, needs a building permit from the City of Mission Viejo, and the association's architectural committee sees the drawing first. We file both and meet the inspector. The wall carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or replace
Push a screwdriver into the bottom tie of a timber wall. If it goes in, the wood is rotting where it stays wet, and every tie above is held by spikes driven into pulp. The wall looks straight because the top ties are sound, but the row carrying the load is the one that has gone.
Sight along the top of a block wall from one end. A belly toward the yard midway along it means the slope is pushing on a wall with nothing inside to push back, because slump block was laid hollow on most pads here. The bow grows every wet winter until a course splits at the bulge.
Fine silt weeping between the blocks or the ties after rain is the slope draining through the wall because it was given no other way out. Each washout carries a little of the ground behind the wall with it, so the fill hollows and the fence or the patio on it starts to drop.
A fence post that stood plumb and now leans out over the slope is reporting the wall under it. The top has moved toward the drop and taken the yard edge with it, and the next to go is the pad itself, since the fill it sits on has nothing holding its face. Call before a storm does.
In every wall
Eight things come with every wall at no separate line, and each answers what the builder's original lacked: a footing in cut ground, steel drawn for the load, a drain with an outlet, and a face the association will sign off on.
Ties, block and the strip they sat on are broken out in short bays and hauled, so the slope behind is never open along its whole length.
The trench is dug through the yard fill to the graded ground beneath, and the footing bears there rather than on what was pushed over the edge.
Vertical bars doweled out of the footing and horizontals at the spacing an engineer sets for the wall's height and the load on the pad above it.
The stem is formed both sides and poured in one continuous lift, so there is no cold joint for water to find halfway up the wall.
Washed rock in a filter fabric the full height of the stem, with a perforated pipe at the footing, the part that decides whether the wall stands.
The pipe runs to an outlet on the slope face or the yard drain, never into the neighbor's pad below, and the outlet is shown you before backfill.
The ground behind the wall goes back in compacted layers after seven days of cure, so the yard edge does not settle away from the new wall.
We walk the wall against the estimate with you, footing, steel, drain, outlet and finish, and hand over the written guarantee before we leave.
How it can be built
Four ways to hold a slope on a pad here, set against how high the wall stands and what sits above it. The footing, the drain and the outlet are the same in all four, so the table is about the wall itself.
| Option | Suits | Steel in it | Face seen from | Backfilled after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poured wall, board finish | Rear slope walls to 6 feet on a graded pad | Number 4 bars both ways, doweled to the footing | The yard and the pad below | 7 days of cure |
| Poured wall, colored face | A wall seen from the street or a neighbor | Number 4 bars both ways, doweled to the footing | The street, so the association reviews it | 7 days of cure |
| Grouted block on footing | Garden walls under 4 feet on level pads | Number 4 bars in grouted cells | The yard side only | 3 days after grouting |
| Pressure-treated timber | A planter step under 2 feet, off the slope | None, deadmen tied into the fill | The yard side only | The same day |
Timber costs least on the day and is the one you buy twice; the poured wall costs most to form and is the one the next owner never thinks about.
Pads and slopes
Nearly every wall we build here stands where the flat pad ends and the manufactured slope begins, and it holds a yard that was built out over the fill the grader pushed there.
Mission Viejo was graded a whole hillside at a time, each street of pads made by cutting the ridge and pushing the spoil downhill to make the next row. The rear of the pad is the fill, the slope below it was shaped to a set gradient and planted, and the lot line usually runs partway down that slope. So the wall a homeowner needs stands on ground never meant to carry one, and the builder's ties or block sat on the fill and moved with it. Ours is footed through the fill into the cut.
The second condition is who looks at the wall. A wall at the rear is seen from the pad below it, a wall at a side lot line or the front is seen from the street, and in most tracts the association's architectural committee has a say in anything a neighbor can see. That sets the face: a board-formed wall does for the slope, a colored or veneered one for the road. Where the wall is under a driveway cut we build it with the driveway.
From call to backfill
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the person who probes the fill is the person who sets the footing. The association sees the drawing and the City issues the permit before a tie comes out of the ground.
Trevor Lindqvist measures the height and the run, probes behind the old wall to find where fill ends and cut begins, and writes the figure there.
You pick the face and the height, and take a date. The drawing goes to your association's committee and the permit to the City in the same week.
Ties or block come out a few feet at a time and the slope face is held with the yard above it intact, then the footing trench is dug into the cut.
The footing and the stem are poured on their own inspections, then rock, fabric and pipe go in behind the wall with the outlet run to daylight.
After seven days the ground goes back in compacted layers, the fence is reset on the new cap, and the paperwork is handed over on the walk-through.
Behind the number
Height starts the figure, and what the pad above is carrying finishes it. Two walls of one length can be a day apart in steel and digging once the fill is probed, so nothing is priced from a photograph. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A rear wall to 4 feet holding a planted yard is the plainest job here, and its figure moves with the length of the run and how deep the fill goes.
In a townhome tract the wall may sit on the common lot line, so the association owns the drawing and the pour is timed around two households.
A pool, a driveway or a house footing within a wall's height of it is a surcharge, and the wall is engineered, permitted and inspected as one.
A wall visible from the road takes an integral color or a stone veneer the committee approves, and the forming and finishing are longer for it.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call that books a time for it comes within 1 business day. (657) 390-1824 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to fix a time. Trevor Lindqvist measures the run, probes the fill behind the old wall and writes the figure at your home, and you are free to put it in a drawer.
Walls we replaced
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a wall on a Mission Viejo slope rather than a patio or a drive, and each naming what was taken out and what went in.
“The railroad ties behind our house in Casta del Sol had rotted through at the bottom row and the whole thing leaned over the slope. They took it out in sections, dug the footing into hard ground and poured a 4-foot wall with a drain out onto the slope. Two winters on, nothing has moved.”
“Our block wall in Canyon Crest had bowed three inches in the middle and mud was coming through it every storm. Trevor found it had no steel and hardly a footing. The new wall is 5 feet, poured in one go, and the drain outlet is right where he said it would be. The fence went back on plumb.”
“Our wall faces the street in Cordova so the association had to approve the color and the cap. They drew it up, handled the committee and the City permit, and poured 38 feet in a day. The inspector passed the steel first time and the colored face matches the block on the house.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how long the slope is open, who has to approve the wall, and what is guaranteed once it is backfilled, answered for a wall at the edge of a pad here.
Height first, then what stands above the wall, then how deep the fill goes. A wall's push grows faster than its height, so a 6-foot wall carries far more steel and a wider footing than a 3-foot one, and a pool or a house footing above it adds a surcharge engineered into both. Then the footing has to reach cut ground, which on a Mission Viejo pad can be 2 feet down or 5. All of it is probed and written down.
Never along its whole length, and never overnight without support. The old wall comes out in bays of a few feet, the footing goes in behind each, and the slope face above is left intact with the yard on it. First tie out to backfill is about two weeks for a wall of 40 feet, most of it the seven days the stem cures before anything is packed against it. We do not open a slope the week a storm is forecast.
Yes. Pulling the ties or breaking out the block, hauling it away, and digging the trench through whatever fill lies under the old wall are in the figure, with the rock, fabric, pipe and outlet. What sits outside it is named at the visit rather than added later: the permit fee, the engineer's stamp where a wall needs one, and a fence rebuilt rather than reset. The figure you sign is the one billed.
Usually two bodies, in this order. Most tracts here sit under an association whose architectural committee reviews anything on a lot line or seen from the street, so the drawing goes there first. Then the City of Mission Viejo issues a building permit for a retaining wall over 4 feet from the footing bottom, or any wall holding a slope above it, and its inspector sees the footing before the pour. We file both.
Rarely, and it turns on how the wall came down. Policies treat a wall that rotted, bowed or settled over years as maintenance, so the builder's tie wall leaning over the slope is the owner's to replace. A wall taken out in one event, a slope failure in a named storm or a vehicle through it, may be covered, and a slope claim may involve the association. Photograph the wall before we touch it and ask your carrier.
How it was built: the footing dug into cut ground, the steel placed as drawn, the stem poured in one lift, the rock and pipe behind it and the outlet run to daylight, with those terms printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Staining, efflorescence and the slope below the wall moving on its own sit outside it. A fault of ours, we put right.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix placed the morning it is batched, number 4 rebar in both directions at the spacing the drawing sets, and dowels out of the footing at the same spacing. Behind the stem goes three-quarter-inch washed rock wrapped in a filter fabric, and a 4-inch perforated pipe at the base. The mix and the bar sizes are named on the estimate, so what the truck brings can be checked against what you agreed to.
Only for the measurement at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between the crew needs water, an unlocked side gate and the yard clear within a few feet of the old wall, and the pump truck will stand at the curb on the morning of each pour. If the only way to the rear is through the house, tell us at the visit and the concrete goes in by line pump over the roof line rather than through your hall.
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 wall is probed and measured at the property before a figure is written.
Four jobs that tend to be booked with a new wall or straight after it, on the same footing detail, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The footing on its own, dug into cut ground and inspected, for a wall another trade builds.
The flight down from the pad to a lower terrace, poured against the wall in the same week.
The yard the wall holds, poured as a slab out to the new cap once the backfill has settled.
Where a pool sits above a slope wall, deck and wall are engineered as one and poured in turn.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say how high the old wall stands, what it is made of and whether it faces the street, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.