Plaza Orange Concrete replaces drives, patios and walks on the flat lots of Fountain Valley, down the 22 from Orange. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the measure is free.
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Fountain Valley has no slope to borrow. The city sits on the flat of the Santa Ana River plain, with a fall across a block a level struggles to find, so water goes only where a slab sends it.
The builders of the 1960s poured the patio dead flat and ran the lawn to its edge, and the lawn drank the runoff. Sixty years on, the lawn is a second patio, artificial turf or pavers, and the block wall on three sides means the water has nowhere left. It ponds on the slab, finds the joint against the house, and soaks the foundation soil under the sill. A flat slab in Fountain Valley is not a slab that failed to drain. It is a slab that was never asked to.
So every slab we pour here is pitched on purpose, a quarter inch to the foot away from the house, and its low edge is given somewhere to go. On a drive that is the gutter. On a patio it is an area drain in the low corner, piped under the side yard to a core in the curb, which the city permits for a private drain. The subgrade is compacted, 4 inches of base goes under the slab, and the joints are cut on a grid so the fall is not lost to a crack.
Fountain Valley was laid out flat, a mile-square grid over old farmland, and the tract slabs poured on it in the 1960s and 1970s are at the end of their run. Replacing one means building the fall the lot never had, so the water leaves.
A Fountain Valley drive was poured for two cars in the 1960s and is asked to hold three now, so most of ours are wider than what they replace. We pour 4 inches on compacted base, pitch the run to the gutter, and widen the apron through the city's encroachment permit.
The builder's patio in Fountain Valley was a flat 10 foot slab that drained into the lawn, and the lawn is gone. We break it out, pour 4 inches on base at a quarter inch to the foot away from the house, and set an area drain in the low corner with a pipe to the street.
Stamped concrete in Fountain Valley goes on the patio that now runs wall to wall, where a plain gray slab would show every puddle. We cast an ashlar or a flagstone into a 4 inch slab pitched to its drain, color it in the mix, and seal it after it has cured.
Walks in Fountain Valley run along the street and from the drive to the door, and it is the second that heaves, on ground the builder never compacted. We take the old panels out, compact the subgrade, and pour 4 inches jointed every 5 feet with a fall to the planting side.
A 1960s garage floor in Fountain Valley is cracked where the drive meets it, because the apron was poured flat and rain sat at the door. We break out the front run or the whole floor, pour 4 inches on base with the fall to the door, and trowel it flat enough for a coating.
Exposed aggregate suits a Fountain Valley pool deck, because the stone gives wet feet a grip that a troweled slab on a dead level lot cannot, and it reads cooler in August sun. We seed the stone, wash it proud the same afternoon, and seal it a month later once it has cured.
A retaining wall in Fountain Valley is a low one, holding a raised planter or a step up to a pool deck, because the lots are flat and there is no hill to hold. We pour it on a footing below the planter's fill, with drainage behind it, and permit it if it stands over 4 feet.
Interior slabs in Fountain Valley are the ADU on the back of a deep lot and the garage turned into a room. We pour them over a vapor barrier on compacted base, because the water sits close under this ground in winter, and trowel the floor flat enough for tile or plank.
From our yard on North Tustin Street the drive is the 55 to the 22 and Brookhurst Street south, about 12 miles, and a crew is on a Fountain Valley street inside 30 minutes at 6 in the morning. Permits come from the City of Fountain Valley Building Division at City Hall on Slater Avenue, and a drive approach, a curb core or anything else in the parkway takes a second permit from Public Works. We file both and meet the inspector.
The city incorporated in 1957 and built out in the fifteen years after, so the tracts between Euclid Street and Magnolia Street, from Warner Avenue south past the 405, are single story houses on 6,000 and 7,000 square foot lots, each with a two car drive, a block wall on three sides and a builder's patio at the back door. Mile Square Park in the middle was a Navy airfield until the city grew around it. Nearly every job here is on one of those lots, and it is the second slab.
The ground is silt and sand off the river with water not far under it in winter, and a slab that ponds keeps that ground wet beneath itself, so the drain matters twice. The storm drains and the river channel along the city's east edge only help a slab that has been given a route to them. The winters are short and the sea air keeps a summer pour cooler than one in Orange, so we work here year round and treat only a February storm as a lost day.
Four stages on one crew, with the fall set on the first visit. The grade is shot with a level before a figure is written, because on a flat lot the route the water takes is the design.
Curtis Ballard measures the slab, shoots the grades with a level, finds the low corner, and writes the figure on site.
The 1960s slab comes out, the subgrade is compacted, and 4 inches of base goes in, graded to the fall the new slab will carry.
We file with the City of Fountain Valley Building Division and with Public Works for the approach or a curb core. No counter for you.
The slab is poured to the pitch, the drain is set in its low corner, joints are cut that day, and cars stay off it for 7 days.
Ring or send the form and we call back within 1 business day to book the visit. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and we are in Fountain Valley most weeks between the 405 and the river.
Reviews
Our reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Orange. Fountain Valley is one of them, and the slabs behind the words are the ones 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.”
The questions we hear on a Fountain Valley lot before a job is booked, on what moves the price of a flat slab, which counter signs the permit, where the water goes and how long the drive is off limits.
The drain, and the route to it. A patio on a flat lot needs a fall built in and a place for the water to go, and where the low corner is at the back of the lot the pipe runs the length of the side yard to a curb core. Add the tear-out of the old slab, which on a 1960s lot is nearly always there, and the size of the pour. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the grades shot before the figure.
Not for the drive itself, which is flatwork on your own lot, but yes for the approach, because the apron between the sidewalk and the gutter is the city's. That part goes through Public Works as an encroachment permit, and a wider apron for a third car is reviewed for the width the city allows. We file it, and a permit for a wall or a footing goes to the Building Division on Slater Avenue.
About 12 miles, most of it freeway. We leave North Tustin Street on the 55, take the 22 west to Brookhurst Street and drop south into the city, which at 6 in the morning is under half an hour. A crew is on your street before the neighbors leave for work and the concrete is ordered for 8, so a pour is finished before the afternoon wind off the coast starts drying the surface.
Where the slab sends it, and nowhere else. The builders let the lawn take it, and the lawn is gone from most yards now. We pitch a patio a quarter inch to the foot away from the house, set an area drain at its low corner, and run a 3 inch pipe under the side yard to the street through a core in the curb. On a drive the pitch runs to the gutter, and a trench drain at the garage door catches the rest.
Seven days for a car, one day for feet. The old drive comes out on the first morning, base and forms go in that day, and the pour is the second morning with the joints cut by the afternoon. Park on the street for a week, because a tire on a 3 day old slab leaves a mark that never comes out, and walk on it from the day after the pour.
Westminster, which shares the northern boundary, and Stanton, Cypress and Los Alamitos beyond it, all from the same yard in Orange. Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa on either side of the city are not on our list, so if your lot sits on a line, ring and we will say which side of it you are on before anyone drives out.
Fountain Valley meets Westminster along its northern edge and the Santa Ana River on its east, and we cover Westminster and the towns beyond it from the same yard. If your street is one of those on a city line, the page next door may be the one you want.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Ring or send the form and we call back within 1 business day to fix the visit. The figure is written on site for nothing, and the finished slab carries a written guarantee.