Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete pours footings and stem walls that carry a floor level where the pad ends, stepped to bearing and drained uphill. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
5.0 Stars Rated by our customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
Wall, not slab
A slab needs flat ground and a stem wall foundation does not, which is why it is the system for an addition that runs past the edge of a Mission Viejo pad. A continuous footing is dug to bearing and stepped where the ground falls, a poured or block wall rises from it to one level, and the floor is framed across the top. The wall on the low side can be 5 feet tall and the one on the high side a foot, and the floor above them is level and dry.
Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete has built these since 2018 and Trevor Lindqvist runs each one, after 17 years on crews across south Orange County. He walks the grade at the visit and marks where the footing will step, because a footing that follows the slope at one depth sits on fill at the bottom and on rock at the top. The engineer sizes the wall, the drain and the hardware from a soils letter, and that sheet is what the crew builds and the inspector reads.
The license is CSLB C-8, with the California Contractors State License Board, and we carry liability insurance on every job. A foundation under a room needs a permit from the City of Mission Viejo's Building Division, and where the outline of the house changes the association's architectural committee sees the plan first. We file both, meet the inspector at trench, steel and pour, and hand over a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
When a wall is the answer
Walk the line of the new room and watch the ground. If it drops more than a foot from the house wall to the far corner, the pad has run out, and a slab there would sit on whatever was pushed over the edge in 1970. A footing stepped to bearing is what carries a floor across that fall.
Many houses here from the 1960s stand on a crawl space rather than a slab, and an addition has to land its floor at the same height. A wall that stops at the joist line is how the new floor meets the old without a step, and it is also what keeps a crawl space you can still get into.
A stair-step crack in a block stem wall, or a wall tipped out at the top where the yard is higher than the crawl space, is the swelling ground behind it pushing. The fix is a new wall on a footing with a drain behind it, because patching the crack leaves the pressure that opened it.
Where the lot rises behind the house, the uphill wall of an addition holds soil as well as the roof. That makes it a retaining wall under the Residential Code, with drain rock, a pipe and the steel a retaining wall needs, and a plain footing without them leans in its second winter.
In every foundation
Eight things are in every footing and wall we pour under a room here. Each answers a lot that is not flat: a footing that steps, a wall holding soil on one side, water running downhill toward it, and a county where the hardware is sized for shaking.
The footing trench is dug through topsoil and fill to the undisturbed ground the engineer names, and the inspector sees it open.
Where the grade falls the footing drops in level steps, each on firm ground, so no length of it is bearing on fill at one end.
Continuous bars in the footing, lapped at the steps and tied to the wall dowels, so the footing works as one piece down the grade.
A poured wall or grouted block rises from the footing to a single line, tall on the low side and short on the high side.
Drain rock, filter fabric and a perforated pipe behind any wall with soil against it, run to daylight or a drain, before the backfill.
Anchor bolts and holdowns set wet to the framing plan, because in Seismic Design Category D they are what ties the room to the ground.
Vent openings and a hatch formed into the wall so the space beneath the floor breathes and can be got into for the life of the house.
The City signs the trench, the steel and the pour, and the written guarantee goes to you with the inspection card at the walk-through.
Four ways to build it
Four ways to hold a floor up on a lot that is not flat, set against how far the ground falls and how deep the fill runs. The engineer chooses from these on the soils letter, and the visit tells you which is likely before it is written.
| Option | Suits | Footing | Wall or beam | Framing starts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level footing, low wall | A flat run of pad, floor meeting a crawl space | 12 by 15 inches, 12 inches into firm ground | Poured 6 to 8 inches wide to the joist line | 7 days after the pour |
| Stepped footing and wall | Ground falling 1 to 5 feet across the room | Stepped in 2-foot drops, each on bearing | Wall taller at each step, one level on top | 7 days, after backfill |
| Retaining stem wall | Yard higher than the floor on the uphill side | Wider heel, keyed into the ground | Poured, with drain rock and pipe behind | 7 days, after the drain is buried |
| Piers and grade beam | Fill past 5 feet or a bank too steep to step | Drilled piers to bearing, 18 inches across | Grade beam spanning pier to pier | 7 days, floor framed on the beam |
A level footing with a low wall asks the least of everything; piers and grade beams ask for a drill rig and are the answer where the fill is too deep to dig through.
Where the pad ends
A foundation here is set by how far the ground falls across the new room, and by which side of the wall the yard stands higher on, and both are measured with a level at the visit.
Mission Viejo was graded out of the Saddleback foothills from the mid 1960s, and a tract pad was made level by moving earth off the high side and over the low one. The house sits on the level part. An addition that pushes 12 or 15 feet past the rear wall runs off the pad onto the fill wedge or down the bank toward Oso Creek, and the ground there can drop 4 feet inside the length of one room. A footing has to step down that to bearing, and the wall on it grows taller with every step.
The uphill side is the second. On the streets that climb, above Lake Mission Viejo and off Marguerite Parkway, the yard behind the house stands higher than the floor, so the rear wall of an addition holds soil as well as the roof. The ground it holds is a siltstone that swells when wet, and a wall with no drain behind it takes that push every winter. Where the difference is more than a wall can carry we build a retaining wall above it first.
From visit to inspection
Five stages from the first visit to the framer's first day, the same crew at each, and the City's inspector at the trench, the steel and the pour. The engineer's sheet comes before the permit and the permit before the digging.
Trevor Lindqvist measures the room, shoots the fall across it, probes for fill and marks the steps, and writes the estimate before leaving.
A soils letter and the foundation plan are ordered, the association reviews the outline, the City takes the permit, and a date is set.
The trench is cut through the fill to firm ground, stepped where the grade falls, and the inspector signs it open before the steel.
Footing bars tied and doweled up, the footing poured, then the wall formed or blocked to one level with bolts and holdowns set.
Drain rock and pipe go behind any wall holding soil, backfill at 7 days, the yard raked back and the inspection card handed to you.
Behind the estimate
The fall of the ground sets the figure before the size of the room does. Each step in a footing is another form, another lap of steel and another foot of wall, and one side can need a drain the other never will.
How many feet the ground drops across it. Each 2-foot step is a taller wall and a deeper dig, so a 4-foot fall is twice the wall of a 2-foot one.
The height of the existing joists sets the wall, and tying into the old footing means exposing it, which is dug by hand under the house.
A retaining stem wall carries a wider footing, more steel, drain rock and a pipe to daylight, and each is measured as its own item.
Where fill runs past 5 feet a drill rig comes in for piers and a grade beam, which the engineer decides and the estimate names before booking.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing. The soils letter and the engineer's plan are their own line on the estimate, named before you sign. (657) 390-1824 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to book the visit. Trevor Lindqvist measures the room, marks where the footing steps and writes the figure at your home. You owe nothing until you decide to build.
Foundations we built
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a footing and wall under a room rather than a patio or a drive, and each naming how far the ground fell or how tall the wall came.
“Our family room addition in Canyon Crest went off the back of the pad where it drops toward the creek. They stepped the footing down in three drops and the wall on the low corner came to nearly 5 feet. The floor is dead level with the old one and the crawl space underneath stays dry.”
“The block stem wall at the back of our 1968 house in Casta del Sol had cracked in a stair step and tipped out an inch. Trevor dug it out, poured a new wall on a wider footing with drain rock and a pipe behind, and backfilled a week later. Two winters since and it has not moved a hair.”
“We added a bedroom on the uphill side of our Lake Forest house where the yard is 3 feet above the floor. The engineer wanted a retaining stem wall and they built it, drain and all, with the inspector there at the trench and the pour. The room was framed 9 days after the concrete.”
Before you build
What moves the figure, how long the lot is open, what is inside the estimate, what the City and the association each want, and what the guarantee covers, answered for a footing and wall on a lot here.
The fall, then what the wall holds, then the size of the room. A footing that steps three times down a bank carries three times the forming of one on a flat run, and a wall with a yard against it needs the footing, steel and drain of a retaining wall. Only after those does the length of the wall count. All three are measured at your home, and the estimate lists the steps and wall heights it was written to.
About three weeks from the breaker to the framer, with the trench open for most of it. Digging and stepping the footing take three to four days, the steel and its inspection another, the footing pour a morning, and the wall two to three days to form, pour and strip. Backfill and the drain go in at 7 days, and the framer can start then. The soils letter and the permit come first and take longer than the work.
Yes, both are on it as their own lines. The soils letter and the foundation plan are the engineer's fee, and the drain rock, fabric and pipe behind any wall holding soil are itemized with the wall. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit rather than added later: a tree that has to come out, a sewer line found in the trench, or a pier rig the engineer calls for once the letter is back.
Yes. A footing or wall under a room is a building permit from the City of Mission Viejo's Building Division, filed with the engineer's plan and the soils letter, and each stage is inspected. Where the outline of the house changes, the association's architectural committee reviews the plan first, and a wall over 4 feet from the bottom of the footing is permitted as a retaining wall on its own. We file with both.
Almost never. A wall pushed out by swelling ground, or a footing that has settled on fill, is earth movement, which the standard policy here excludes, so it is the owner's to rebuild. A wall broken by a burst line washing the footing out can be a covered loss. Photograph the crack before anything is dug and ask your carrier before you book, because the answer changes what you ask us to price.
How it was built: the footing dug to depth and stepped on bearing, the steel lapped as the plan shows, the drain laid behind the wall and the bolts set to the layout, with those terms on the estimate you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Ground moving beyond what the engineer designed for, and anything the framer alters, sit outside it. A fault in the build we fix.
A 3,500 psi mix in the footing and the wall, or the strength the engineer writes, placed the morning it is batched. Number 4 bars continuous in the footing and dowels up into the wall, a poured wall or grouted block, and anchor bolts and holdowns to the sizes on the framing plan. Behind a wall holding soil, drain rock, filter fabric and a 4-inch perforated pipe. Everything is named on the plan and the estimate.
Only for the visit at the start and the walk-through at the end. Between them the crew needs a side gate a mini excavator fits through, water and power, and the rear yard clear along the line of the new room. The pump truck stands at the curb on the two pour mornings, so the driveway needs to be empty those days. If the gate is under 36 inches, say so at the visit and the trench is dug by hand.
Towns we build in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on La Paz Road beside each. Every lot is walked and its fall measured at the property before a figure is written.
Four jobs that go with a footing and wall under a new room, before it or straight after, by the same crew and on the one written estimate.
The slab for a unit or an addition that stays on the flat of the pad.
The wall above a foundation where the yard stands higher than one wall can hold.
The footing on its own, for a porch, a deck or a wall the framer is building.
Lifting a house off a wall that has failed so a new one can be built under it.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say roughly where the new room goes and which way the ground falls behind the house, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.