Plaza Orange Concrete pours drives, patios and walls in Brea, 11 miles up the 57 from our yard in Orange, with the fall built into every slab. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Brea has too little fall on the flats and too much on the hills, and either one breaks a slab the same way, with water standing where it should not. So every slab here is set to its own grade first.
The flats along Imperial Highway and around downtown were laid level by Brea Creek, and a builder's patio there was floated flat with the lawn. Flat means water sits on it, and in winter it sits against the house. Up in the tracts north of Lambert Road and off Carbon Canyon Road the lots were cut into the hillside, and a drive there can drop the height of a room from garage to street. Water runs down it fast, takes the fines from under the edge, and the first corner sinks.
So a level Brea patio is poured with a quarter inch of fall per foot away from the house, invisible and enough to move a storm off it, and the drive is graded to the gutter, not to the neighbor. A hill drive gets a coarse broom drawn across the slope for grip, a thickened edge on the downhill side, and a drain at the apron so the water is caught before the garage door. Both go on 4 inches of compacted base with steel through the slab, because a grade is worthless on a base that moves.
Brea climbs from Imperial Highway to the ridges above Lambert Road, and most of the eight jobs below change with the slope. Below the 57 they are about getting water off a level lot, and above it they are about holding a slab still on a grade.
A hill drive in Brea can drop a full story from garage to street, so we broom it across the slope, thicken the downhill edge and set a trench drain at the apron. On the flats the job is the reverse, lifting a sunken ribbon drive to meet the gutter on 4 inches of compacted base.
A Brea patio on the flats replaces a builder's slab floated level with the lawn, which is why the water stood against the house. The new one falls a quarter inch a foot away from the wall on 4 inches of compacted base, jointed at 10 feet and doweled to the house slab.
Stamped concrete on a Brea hill lot is asked for at the back, where the pad is the only level ground and the view is the point. We cast a slate or ashlar pattern into a 4 inch slab, run the fall to a drain rather than over the slope, and seal it twice against the sun.
A Brea walk from the street to the door often climbs, and past a certain pitch it is safer as steps than as a slope you slide on in the rain. We set the grade with a level, pour it broomed on compacted base, and pull the encroachment permit for the section at the curb.
A garage floor on a Brea hill lot is the highest slab on the lot, and the drive below carries water toward the door. We break out the old floor, lay base and a 10 mil barrier, pour 5 inches with steel, and set the apron a step down with a drain across it so the garage stays dry.
Exposed aggregate gives a sloping Brea drive the grip a smooth finish cannot, because the washed stone stands proud of the paste. We seed river stone into a 4 inch slab, wash it at the right hour, and border it with a smooth band that also carries the water to the drain.
Retaining walls hold the pads in the Brea hill tracts, and the timber ones the builders left are past their life. We pour on a footing set into firm ground below the fill, tie the bar into the stem, drain the back, and file the engineered detail where the height needs it.
Additions and garage conversions in Brea need an interior slab that meets the house floor without a step, and on a hill lot that floor is often above the yard. We pour on 4 inches of base over a lapped 10 mil barrier, dowel into the original, and trowel it flat for tile or wood.
Our yard is in Orange at the bottom of the 57, and Brea is at the top of it, 11 miles north with no turns until the Imperial Highway or Lambert Road exit. That makes Brea the north end of the patch we cover, and we run Brea jobs in a block so a crew is up there for a week rather than a morning. Permits go to the City of Brea Building Division at the Civic and Cultural Center on Birch Street, and work at the curb needs an encroachment permit from Public Works.
Downtown, the bungalow streets between Brea Boulevard and the 57 are the level part, and the original ribbon drives there are short, narrow and lower than the street after decades of repaving, so a new drive is raised to meet the gutter. Country Hills and the tracts off Lambert Road are 1970s and 1980s houses on graded pads, with the first steep drives in the city. Olinda Ranch, Blackstone and La Floresta are the newest ground, engineered fill with the grading plan on file at the city.
Two flood-control dams bracket Brea, Carbon Canyon Dam at the top of Carbon Canyon Road and Brea Dam just over the Fullerton line, and everything between them drains to Brea Creek. A yard on the flats sits in the ground those dams were built to protect, level and slow to drain, so we grade a slab to the street and never to the fence. On the hills the water goes the other way, over the slope, and the rule is the opposite, keep it on the pad and put it down a drain.
Four stages with one crew, and the figure written at your house before a date is held. The first stage is where Brea differs, because the fall of the lot is shot with a level before the slab is measured with a tape.
Curtis Ballard shoots the grade across the lot with a level, measures the slab, and writes the figure at your kitchen table.
The old slab comes out whole, the subgrade is cut or filled to the new grade, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is compacted onto it.
We file with the Building Division where the job needs it and pull the encroachment permit for any work at the curb or the walk.
Forms are set to the fall, the slab is poured and broomed, joints cut the same day, feet after 24 hours and cars after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will ring back within 1 business day to book the visit. We come up the 57, shoot the grade, measure the slab, and write the figure at your house before we leave, and it costs nothing.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, Brea among them. The slabs behind them were set to the fall of the lot, as described above.
“Our drive goes right down the lot to a garage on the alley, and it had broken into about nine pieces. They took out 540 square feet, put five inches back and got the joints in before they left that evening. Curtis was here at seven for the pour.”
“Three of the pepper trees out front had lifted the walk into a trip hazard and the city had already been round. Seventy feet of panel came out, a barrier went in against each root plate, and the new walk has stayed flat through two winters.”
“The back of our lot falls away hard and the old patio had cracked right across the middle. They stepped the new one down in two levels, 380 square feet of it, and formed a drain along the low edge. Nothing has stood on it since, even in February.”
Six things people in Brea ask before booking, covering what moves the figure on a slope, which counter takes the permit, how steep a drive can be poured, how soon a crew arrives and when the drive takes a car.
The slope, before the size. A hill lot in Brea often means the subgrade is cut on one side and built up on the other to reach the new grade, and a drive with a drop needs a drain and a thickened edge that a level drive does not. On the flats the figure moves with how far the slab has to be raised to meet the street. After that it is area and thickness, and the number is written at your house with the grade shot.
Not for flatwork at grade on your own lot. You do for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a patio cover, an interior slab, and any wall on a hill lot the city asks an engineer to detail. Those go to the Building Division at the Civic and Cultural Center on Birch Street. The curb cut and the public walk are an encroachment permit through Public Works, and we pull both.
Steep enough to need a transition, and most hill drives here do. A drive that runs straight from a level garage floor onto a sharp slope scrapes the front of a low car, so we ease the top with a short flatter section at the apron and again at the gutter. The middle is broomed across the fall for grip, and where the drop is severe we recommend a coarse broom or exposed aggregate over a smooth finish.
We are at the bottom of the 57 and Brea is at the top, 11 miles with one exit, so a crew is there in about 20 minutes outside the rush. When you call we ring back within 1 business day, and the visit is booked for a week we are already working in Brea, because we run Brea jobs in a block rather than one at a time up and down the freeway.
Seven days after the pour, and you can walk on it after 24 hours. Most Brea drives take 3 days on site before that, one to break out, one for base and forms, and the morning of the pour. On a hill lot the forms take longer, because they are set to the fall with a level and checked twice. So the car is on the street for about 10 days from the first cut.
Yes, and Diamond Bar over the county line and La Habra Heights, all from the one yard in Orange. Brea is the north end of the patch we cover, so a Brea week usually includes a job in Placentia or Yorba Linda on the way. Each of those towns has a page of its own, because the ground and the slope change at the line, and if your street is on the Placentia side that page is the one to read.
Brea shares lines with Placentia, Yorba Linda, La Habra and La Habra Heights, and Diamond Bar is over the county line at the top of Brea Canyon. We cover each from the same yard in Orange, and each has its own page because the ground changes at the line.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Send the form, we ring back within 1 business day, and the estimate is written at your house. The work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.