Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete repours the bay floor at the foot of the drive, 5 inches thick, sloped back to the door, packed over the half of the pad that dropped and sealed at 28 days.
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How the floor is poured
A garage floor here is the low point of the lot, and it is poured as one. On most streets in this city the drive pitches down from the curb to the garage door, so the floor has to sit above the apron's swale and fall back out toward the door at a quarter inch to the foot, or the first November storm arrives inside the bay and stays there. The fall is set before the old floor is broken out, because the door track and the sill are fixed and the new slab has to land under both.
Saddleback Mission Viejo Concrete was founded in Mission Viejo in 2018 by Trevor Lindqvist, after 17 years on flatwork crews across south Orange County, and he runs every garage pour himself. The bays here were poured with the houses between the mid 1960s and the 1980s, on pads cut into the hill on one side and filled on the other, and a floor cracked along one straight line has the fill half under it. Both halves are probed and the base goes deeper over the one that gave.
The floor is built to the California Residential Code under a CSLB C-8 license, with liability insurance on every job. Because it is a slab under a roof, replacing it takes a permit from the City of Mission Viejo's Building Division, which we file and meet the inspector for. It is also the one slab on the lot the association never sees, so no submittal stands between estimate and pour. It carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or replace
The floor was poured level or has tilted back with the fill under it, so what blows in under the door runs to the rear and sits against the framing. A puddle still there two days after rain means the slab has lost its fall, and no coating or grinding puts a fall back into a flat one.
The apron and the floor were poured on the same day sixty years ago and have since moved apart. A lip you feel through the tires at the door means one of them dropped, and it is nearly always the floor on the fill side of the pad. Grinding it flat thins a slab that is already going.
A single straight crack running from the door to the back wall is the seam between cut and fill under the house, the two halves of the floor settling at different rates either side of it. It opens a little more each wet winter, and a filler poured into it is pushed out by spring.
Tap the floor with a heel from the door to the rear wall. A ringing patch is concrete with a void under it, where fill washed out or dried and shrank away from the slab. Weight on a floor bridging a void breaks it, and the plan to park a truck or fit a lift there waits for a new one.
In every floor
Eight things are in every garage floor at no separate line, and each answers what the lot does to the bay: a drive that pitches toward the door, a pad settling on one half, and a slab that never sees the sun to dry it.
The slab is sawn free of the footing, broken out and hauled the same day, and the footing under the stem wall is left standing.
The cut side and the fill side are probed before base goes in, and the soft one is dug deeper, which is what stops the seam crack.
4 inches of gravel on the cut side and more over the fill, compacted in layers under a plate, so the bed is proved before any forms go in.
A vapor sheet goes down over the base, because a floor that never dries in the sun wicks damp up into anything stored on it.
5 inches of 3,500 psi mix with welded mesh at mid-depth, the thickness a truck or a two-post lift asks of a floor, printed on the estimate.
The screed is set a quarter inch to the foot from the back wall down to the door, so anything that gets in leaves the same way.
Rebar dowels are epoxied into the old footing along the walls, so the floor cannot drop away from the house again where the fill settles.
The floor is hard troweled, sealed at 28 days, and walked with you against the estimate before the guarantee is handed over.
How it can be built
Four ways to put a floor in a bay on a graded pad, set against what will park on it and which half of the pad the bay sits on. The fall to the door and the base under it are the same in all four, so the table is about the slab itself.
| Option | Suits | Steel in it | Over a dropped pad | Cars back in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4-inch broom floor | Two cars in a bay on the cut side | Fiber through the mix only | Base only, no tie to the footing | 7 days for a car |
| 5-inch troweled floor | A truck, a boat trailer or a workbench bay | Welded mesh at mid-depth | Base dug deeper over the fill half | 7 days, 28 for the truck |
| 5-inch floor doweled in | A fill-side bay that has already dropped | Mesh plus dowels into the footing | Held to the house at the walls | 7 days, 28 for a lift |
| Topping on the old floor | A sound slab that is only pitted or stained | None, it rides the old slab | Moves with whatever is under it | 3 days for a car |
A topping is the least to lay and the least to trust, since it moves with the old floor under it; the doweled 5-inch floor holds level over fill and takes a lift.
The pad and the drive
The bay here answers to two things the rest of the lot does not: a drive that falls toward its door, and a floor that has sat on a graded pad for 40 to 60 years without the sun ever reaching it.
The tracts were laid out by the Mission Viejo Company from the mid 1960s with the garage on the street side of the house, and on a hillside street that puts the door below the curb more often than above it. Rain and the dust the Santa Ana winds carry come down the drive to the door, and the floor behind it was poured level, so what gets in has nowhere to go. A floor poured now takes its fall from the door track back, the swale in the apron catches the rest, and both are set at once.
Underneath, the pad was made by cutting the hill and filling the far side, and the garage often straddles the seam because it stands at the front edge of the pad. Fill under a roof never wets and dries with the seasons the way a yard does, so it settles slowly and in one direction, and a floor that has dropped an inch at the back wall in Cordova or Madrid is doing exactly that. The driveway outside is poured to the same threshold when both go in together, so the lip never returns.
From call to cure
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the person who probes the pad at the estimate is the one who screeds the floor at the pour. The building permit is filed before the saw is started.
Trevor Lindqvist probes both halves of the bay, shoots the door track, the sill and the apron, and writes the estimate before he leaves.
You set the thickness against what will park on it, pick a broom or troweled finish, and take a date. The permit is filed with the City first.
The floor is sawn free of the footing and hauled out, and the fill side is dug until the ground under it holds a plate rather than a heel.
Gravel packed in lifts, the sheet laid, dowels epoxied into the footing, and the pour screeded to a fall from the back wall to the door.
Kept damp for 7 days, cars in after that, sealed at 28 days, and the floor walked with you against the estimate on the last visit.
Behind the number
The bay's size starts the figure and the pad under it finishes it. Two garages of the same square footage can be a day apart in work once the probes are in, which is why nothing is quoted from a photo. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A 1960s or 1970s attached bay is the standard job, and what moves it is how much of the floor sits on fill and whether the apron is repoured too.
The slab may be shared property under the association's rules, which sets who signs the estimate and whether the next bay is closed for a week.
A two-post lift or a boat trailer puts its weight on four small spots, so the floor goes to 6 inches on rebar there and that area is priced alone.
A floor that will take a coating is hard troweled, sheeted underneath and held flat within an eighth of an inch, which adds a pass to the pour.
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 probes the pad, shoots the door and the apron and writes the figure at your house, and you are free to put it in a drawer.
Floors we repoured
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a garage floor rather than a drive or a patio, and each naming what had gone wrong under the old one.
“Our garage in Madrid had a crack straight down the middle and the back half had dropped nearly an inch. They dug the low side out, packed it and poured the floor at 5 inches with dowels into the footing. Two winters on it is still level and the rain that comes down the drive runs back out.”
“I wanted a lift in the third bay and the old floor rang hollow under it. Trevor poured that bay at 6 inches on rebar and the other two at 5, troweled the whole thing and sealed it at four weeks. The lift has had a truck up on it since spring and the floor has not marked.”
“The floor of our 1970s garage in Casta del Sol sat below the apron and every storm left a puddle at the back wall. They poured the new floor with a fall to the door and reset the apron to meet it on the same day. We have had a wet January since and the back wall stayed dry.”
Before you book
What moves the figure on a bay, how long the cars are on the street, what the permit covers and what is guaranteed once the floor is sealed, answered for a garage on a pad here.
Which half of the pad the bay sits on, more than its size. A floor on the cut side needs base and a pour; a floor on the fill side needs the soft ground dug out and replaced first, and dowels into the footing so it cannot drop again. After that it is whether the apron is repoured to meet the new threshold and what will park on it, since a lift bay goes to 6 inches. All of it is probed on site and written down.
Nine days for most two-car bays, and a little more where the fill side is deep. The saw, the break-out and the dig take one day, the base, the sheet and the dowels a second, and the pour a morning. After that the floor is kept damp for seven days, which is when a car can go back in. A truck or a lift waits for 28 days, and the sealer goes on the same week, so plan on the drive holding the cars for a while.
Yes. Sawing the old slab free of the footing, breaking it out and hauling it away is written into the figure, and so is the dig-out of soft fill found under it. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit rather than added later, such as the permit fee, a door track that has to be reset, or a cast iron drain under the floor that breaks when it is uncovered. The number you sign is the one on the bill.
Yes, because the floor is a slab under a roof rather than an open yard slab. The California Residential Code exempts a driveway or a patio, but a floor inside the house footprint takes a building permit from the City of Mission Viejo's Building Division, which inspects the base and the sheet before the pour. No association review applies, since nothing seen from the street changes. We file and meet the inspector.
Almost never. Policies treat fill settling under a pad, shrinkage cracking and sixty years of wear as maintenance rather than a sudden loss, and most exclude earth movement by name, so a floor that has dropped on the fill side is the owner's to replace. The exception is a covered event, a burst water line under the slab or a car through the back wall. Photograph the floor before it is sawn and ask your carrier.
How it was built: the depth dug over the fill, the base compacted, the sheet, the thickness poured, the dowels and the fall to the door, with those terms printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Tire marks, stains, a coating someone else applies and the pad settling past what the dowels hold sit outside it. A fault in the build, we fix.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix poured the morning it is batched, 4 inches of compacted gravel under it, a 10 mil vapor sheet over the gravel, welded mesh at mid-depth, and number 4 rebar dowels epoxied into the old footing along the walls. A lift bay takes number 3 rebar on a mat at 6 inches instead of the mesh. Each is named on the estimate, so what arrives on the truck can be checked against what you agreed to.
Only for the probing at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between the crew needs the bay emptied, power and water at the door, and the cars on the drive or the street for nine days. If the water heater or the furnace stands on the garage floor, tell us at the visit, because that corner is sawn around and poured last so neither is shut off for more than a morning.
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 floor is probed and measured at the house before a figure is written.
Four jobs that tend to be booked with a garage floor or straight after it, on the same threshold, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The pitched drive outside the door, repoured to the new threshold so no lip comes back.
A bay becoming a room takes a floor finished flat and polished rather than broomed.
The saw cut that frees the old floor from the footing, or opens it for a drain line.
A new detached garage or workshop at the back of the pad, footings and slab in one pour.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say whether the drive runs down to the door and what you plan to park on the floor, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.